Shadows of Greatness
by enelle1989
Summary: Long after U4. Nathan Drake leads normal and peaceful life with his beloved and unconventional family. But then his past awakens and leads him to destruction.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer** : I don't own anything of the Uncharted series, everything belongs to Naughty Dog, Sony and other respective owners.

I am not an English-speaker, so if there are mistakes, forgive me, I'm doing my best to avoid them.

 **Chapter 1 - Calm before the storm**

Nathan Drake would have lied had he stated that he didn't expect this to happen someday. But for the last years of his life - the happiest he ever lived - he willingly and consistently assured himself that this time he was certainly and fully wrong. And he got used to this thought.

He truly believed in it.

So when this nightmare of his eventually came true, he couldn't believe how stupid and naive he had to be to ever have a slightest hope of leaving his past behind. He imagined 'past' as a dark and cold corridor that disappeared every night behind the locked doors to his and Elena's bedroom. In these moments he found it easy to forget and stay on this side, full of light and warmth. But now it was obvious that although he tried so hard to forget about the past, the past has never forgotten about him.

Now, sitting in front of his beach house, Nate stared at the laptop on his lap and watched the number of incoming messages rise with every minute. He felt an overwhelming desire to throw this piece of electronic crap deep into the ocean - along with his cellphone which was constantly vibrating in his pocket. On this day, just like the previous two days, he hadn't the slightest intention of picking up calls or reading e-mails. He rested his head on his hands and sighed loudly, pressing fingers to his temples. _Think, Nate_ , he said to himself inwardly, _think_!

Throughout the years Nathan Drake fought various shit. Spanish zombies, icy yetis and fire guardians, mercenaries, terrorists, guys in fancy suits, pirates, private armies… This and a whole bunch of villains more. Now he'd faced an opponent who seemed far more dangerous and ruthless.

Journalists.

… _How to get rid of an army of journalists?_

Suddenly he felt his wife's cool fingers on his temples, slipping in-between his own and pressing gently against his skin. He let his hands fall along his sides and leaned against the back of the chair, letting out a low growl.

"Oh yes-" he murmured. "Don't stop. That's exactly what I need."

"You're welcome," he heard Elena's answer from behind. She was trailing circles with her fingers against his temples, pressing all the right spots, that always worked on him - distressing him and soothing his nerves. While massaging her husband's temples Elena glanced at the laptop screen.

"Wow, you really are popular," she snorted. "Like a rock star. We should start sending them autographs."

"Very funny," Nate sighed with a bit of irritation, but he didn't open his eyes. "Really."

"Hey, don't worry," she said, reaching out over his shoulder and flipping the laptop closed. "They're trying to reach me too. I locked the cellphone in the washing machine. If they won't stop calling, I will set the laundry."

Nate chuckled but didn't say anything in reply, relaxing under her touch. He appreciated her attempts to cheer him up, but this fuss seemed different than other problems they faced throughout the years. After so much time of a normal and "legal" life Nate felt uneasy when someone or something reminded him about his life as a thief. It wasn't like he got allergic to it - Sam and Sully never actually dropped this lifestyle and every time they met, he listened to their incredible stories. Countless times he got to pay a bail to get them out of jail. It changed recently. Sam was taking jobs mostly by himself, as Sullivan started experiencing more and more severe health problems…

"Couldn't you… y'know…" he muttered, looking through narrowed eyes towards the ocean. The storm was slowly approaching from the south, painting the distant sky with dark, gray clouds.

" _It will stop_ ," Elena interrupted him. She slid her hands down his cheeks and his neck, then rested them on his shoulders and pressed a gentle kiss on Nate's ear. "I'm certain of it. They'll eventually exhaust the topic. Besides, you're safe from the legal side, you're protected by the statute of limitations."

"I know, but…" Nate reached and grabbed her left hand, guiding her to face him. Her golden hair bent in a ponytail gleamed in the afternoon sun.

"'Lena, they're _journalists_ , right? You must know at least some of them. Couldn't you just tell them to butt out?"

It seemed to him that he saw a glimpse of panic in her eyes, only for a brief moment. Then Elena sighed, moved away his laptop and sat down nicely on Nate's lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. Nate curled his arm around her back, supporting her and breathed in her delicate scent.

"I already did it, Nate," she whispered quietly into his ear after a few seconds. "They… some of them promised to leave the topic."

He felt his muscles relax a bit. "That's good," he whispered back, wrapping another arm around her waist and hugging her tight. "How many you mean by 'some of them'?"

Elena squirmed on his lap as she hesitated to answer. "…A few."

Nate knew that voice of hers. There was only one worse liar on this planet than him. But the difference between them was that when in doubt, Nate usually chose to lie, even if it was unsuccessful in advance, while Elena always did everything to avoid it first.

He raised his left hand and gently pulled her away to meet her brown eyes.

"How many?" he asked her again. "Tell me."

He noticed the same glimpse of panic, then Elena lowered her gaze with a sigh.

"Two."

Nate froze, then shook his head in disbelief. "No," he said, frowning at her, and when Elena nodded, he snorted. "Oh, you gotta be kidding me-"

Of all her fellow editors-in-chief only two promised Elena to immediately wipe the topic off their websites and magazines, just in the name of their acquaintance and respect towards her. The others were ruthless. Unfortunately, it was a kind of news on which a lot of haters' gonna feed for some time, buying magazines and visiting websites with proper amount of commercials… Nate and Elena knew that it was all about money. Such image crisis always brings nothing but profits to these vultures. For the next weeks they can talk this through from any angle, ask "experts", lawyers, provide the hungry audience with a hidden picture... Nate felt he hated all these editors even more when he remembered their false, stiff smiles as Elena was signing advertising contracts with them or sending them "exclusive" first-hand news footage from their expeditions.

He never liked journalists anyway. And his wife was the exception that only confirmed this rule; after all, his original plan was to use her money and then ditch her at the dock... That was his usual attitude towards journalists.

"Damn it!" Nate cursed, clenching his fist. "We should have done something when we first got that fucking letter…"

Elena sighed sadly and patted his shoulder.

"Like what?" she asked resignedly, drawing a circle with her thumb on his skin. "It would have leaked to the media anyway, sooner or later."

Nate didn't want to admit it. He always wanted to protect Elena and Cassie, and a thought that he might have done something wrong and that brought trouble on his family was killing him. But Elena could have been right. They didn't know that the situation will develop… maybe they wished for the case to silent by itself. Somehow.

Nate stayed silent for a while, staring at the horizon, then squirmed as Elena patted him gently, pulling him out of his thoughts.

"…storm is coming," he nodded absentmindedly towards the ocean and Elena glanced behind her back. There were dark clouds in the distance, but on their part the sun was still shining mercilessly. "Cassie called?"

"Yeah," Elena replied, rising to her feet. "Slight delay in Paris. She'll call again before boarding."

Nate nodded. Fortunately, they talked "the matter" through with Cassie many years ago. They told her everything… well, _most_ of the details. Nate found it hard to admit before his beloved and innocent little girl, that he did things in the past he's now not exactly proud of. God, he was scared as hell to see how she would react to these stories, but Elena was always certain that this was the right thing to do. " _She should learn it from you"_ , she encouraged him to start the talk. Now Nate was more than grateful for Elena for this - a thought that Cassie might have learned about her father's _glorious_ past from the media was unbearable. Now, when this affair broke out, they decided that she should go home before those news-hunters find her.

Unexpectedly Elena pulled her shirt over her head, then turned to her husband, and began to pull on her shorts, staying in a turquoise bathing suit. She smiled flirtatiously, watching him as he raised his both eyebrows.

"Whoa," he sighed, playful grin appearing on his face. "Is that an invitation of some kind?"

Elena chuckled.

"The storm is still far away, and I really want to swim. You're invited to join me."

Nate watched her as she ran towards the shore, then stood and followed her to the water. They left a path of their clothes behind them, and the beach soon filled with their loud laughter.

Laughter, that drowned out a very distant, barely audible thunder.

* * *

~ To be continued.

I am curious of what you think about it. I was wondering whether it's possible for a person like Nate to leave his life of a thief and peacefully live his new life in a society that's, unfortunately, full of people that are not willing to give any 'second chances'. I actually witnessed it several times to be a severe social problem.

I have an outline for the rest of the chapters, but I'm not sure how will it develop, so I'll be adding tags gradually.

P.S. And YES, I know that swimming before and during the storm in not advisable. :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 - Messages from the Past**

By the time they set off to the airport, the storm already hit the shore with full force, painting the sky with heavy, black clouds. Strong wind made the trees bend and soon the world got blurred behind the curtain of intense rain. Nate and Elena barely made it to their jeep without getting thoroughly wet (again). Elena grabbed the wheel and flicked wet strand of hair off her eyes.

"Holy shit," she sighed as Nate slammed the door behind him. "This doesn't look good. Hope the house will be still standing when we'll be back."

"It still wouldn't be that bad," Nate replied and grinned at the sight of his wife's shocked look. "I mean we still have a car - I've slept in worse places than that."

"Speak for yourself, cowboy," Elena snickered, turning on the engine. "I love this house and I want it to resist the storm!"

Nate chuckled and looked over his shoulder at the building. Descending raindrops thundered against the roof tile and water flowed down the walls creating little waterfalls. He was nearly sure the house will survive - it wasn't its first big storm. Well… maybe he'll only have a lot of branches to clean up from the roof afterwards.

It wasn't just Elena's beloved home. They both loved the place. They feel in love with it the moment they saw it in the catalogue. The building was very neglected after the previous owner, who didn't live there permanently, but was visiting it for a vacation. Renovation was a real nightmare and prolonged unmercifully - but when it was finally over, the creation of a tiny paradise in this place was only a matter of time. And it was primarily thanks to Elena. It was her idea to build an extra bungalow, where they could concentrate on work - that allowed to make home a place only for rest. Unlike Nate, Elena also paid attention to those little details, that make one feel cozily and comfortable - for example soft blankets on the sofas, atmospheric little lights in the bedroom, big cups in the cupboards and a proper stock of soluble chocolate. But above everything the liked about the house, they loved the way nature literally was breaking into the building, in the guise of the dense forest just outside their windows, loud twitters of birds, grains of sand from the beach on the floor and a scent of fresh sea breeze each morning.

They rode to the airport in complete silence, with muted radio, each of them enwrapped in their thoughts. Although they didn't say anything, each of them knew of whom the other one was thinking about.

Truth be told, Cassie accepted the story about her father's criminal past surprisingly well and in surprisingly grown-up way. When Nate started his " _sunshine, we need to talk_ " lines, she immediately turned herself into one big question - "How did you do that?", "Why did you do that?", "Weren't you scared?". When she finally ran short of questions (nearly leading her father to the edge of exhaustion), she said "okay" - and went silent. For a few days she almost stopped talking to her parents. She mused. She processed new facts from the life of her closest family (naturally, including uncle Sam and Sully too). Facts she didn't hear about during those fourteen years of her life, until now.

After a few days of the murderous hail of questions, Nate accepted her silence at first with relief, but in time he began to worry. He was constantly catching himself glancing at his daughter with hope that she'll return even a single smile. He almost felt like if he was invisible to her. This incident helped him discover, how much Cassie's behavior was similar to Elena's when she was angry with him - which almost made him felt like if he'd done something really wrong to his daughter by telling her the truth. He thought about it for long, but was too afraid to touch the subject first - afraid to hear from Cassie, that he disappointed her…

And one day, when Nate was faking-down ropes on the deck on their sailing boat, he heard the girl's voice from behind.

"Wanna help?"

And just before he turned, somebody jostled him and he fell over the rail off the side and into the sea - in a blink of an eye. When he broke the surface, he couldn't be more surprised seeing his own daughter, standing on the side of the boat and grinning mischievously. He called her name, trying to sound offended and cover the grin that was forming on his face.

"I suppose you left that old job soon enough," she stated, "because if you'd continue, you'd surely be dead by now. It's a cakewalk even for a teenager to take you down, Mr Drake."

That time Nate thought that the worst was over him. It was - for nearly 4 years. And then about three of four months ago, something strange started to happen.

They started getting strange letters.

Letters and e-mails themselves weren't something unusual - because of Elena's bestseller guidebooks, TV show and a chain of successful expeditions they were popular not only in the explorers' world, but also in the mass media. They usually were getting a lot of letters from their fans. Of course, there were also critique letters. Several times they got messages from so-called-scientists, with whom Nate had been corresponding stubbornly for months, trying to prove them that they were wrong in their historical theories (he couldn't just let them go, despite Elena's pleas). The amount of letters was growing, and two years ago they stopped being able to read them all by themselves, so they hired an employee to administrate and sort them.

Then one day their manager called Elena and asked her and Nathan to come to their office downtown. "ASAP," she said.

When they got there, the manager presented them two similar, anonymous letters. Inside the envelopes they found copies of Nathan's criminal record from Istanbul's Police Department confirming, that he had been arrested for committing an attempt to loot the state museum and had spent a mouth in Turkish prison. There were two short notes attached, written with broken English on a typewriter: _Mr. "D &F Fortunes" Drake, do you reccommending thievery to be the much reliable way of collecting artifacts - of corse, accordding to your experience?_

Nate and Elena didn't betray themselves in the office, in front of the manager. On their way back both remained silent. When they reached home, they fell into consternation. They were reading the letter over and over again, trying to find any clues. Having met a bunch of villains in his life (and, above all, having some unpaid debts with a great part of them) Nate could indicate literally _dozens_ of possible authors of the mysterious letters. But the truth was, that they couldn't even contact the Police - the message itself wasn't clearly written as a blackmail. Yet. They couldn't do anything else and so they decided to wait and see, whether there'll be more.

But the letters kept coming. Every two weeks. They had the same content, just the attachments varied - always consisting of copies of Nate's criminal records, arrest warrants, 'wanted' notices, court's judgements and juvenile care service reports (when Nate was still a teenager). While opening every another letter Nate could practically hear the diabolic giggles from the other world of the greatest sons of bitches he met in his life - Roman, Flynn, Marlove, Adler... Both Nate and Elena still didn't have any clue on the person of the sender, but the tension was rising with each day. All they knew was that the mysterious sender was very mobile - judging by the stamps on the envelopes every message came from a different country and different city.

And eventually, two days ago Elena's phone woke them up early on Friday morning. It was their manager who told them to turn on the TV news.

This way they appeared on the news and didn't leave for two days long now - not as a 'marked in red' news, but the one important enough to linger on the main websites and main TV newscast with headlines such as:

 _Famous explorer Nathan Drake's criminal record revealed._

 _He dug it or he stole it? The Nathan Drake's dark secret._

 _Shocking: Nathan Drake from D &F Fortunes repeatedly convicted of theft._

And those were only the most decent ones.

~ To be continued.

Originally this chapter was much longer, but I decided to crop it in two chapters. Besides, I had to finally introduce you guys with the full background of the Drake's latest challenge.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 - At the Airport**

It was still raining heavily when they reached the airport's parking. The place was crowdy, people were fleeing from the rain carrying their luggage, hiding under the flyovers and waiting for a taxi, a bus or their family. And, like usually, there was no free parking lot to stop a car.

"Shit," Elena cursed after second round through the parking, then stopped their jeep at the entrance to the terminal. "Go, I'll make another round and meet you here," she ordered.

Nate nodded then got out of the car and ran towards the entrance, splashing around the water from the pools. He ran among the people and made an impressive jump over a luggage pile on the pavement. _Still in shape old man_ , he praised himself after landing and looked back to check whether Elena saw it, but her car was already gone.

The terminal seemed much more crowdy than usual. Nearly a half of the table of departures was marked in red, stating the estimated time of lateness. Everything because of bad weather. Some of the flights was already three or four hours late and the atmosphere was tense. People were gathering in small and bigger groups, some of them sitting on the floor or on their luggage, but everyone commented loudly the lack of organization and complained in various languages. Nate wiped the water from his cheeks and temples then quickly made his way to the meeting point at the International Arrivals Zone.

When he got there, he checked the time. Almost 9:40 PM. Cassie landed just a quarter ago - she probably still didn't collect her luggage. Nate sighed then found an empty spot near the barriers, put his hands in his pockets and began staring at the glass doors with the 'welcome' inscription on them.

Waiting at the airport - that was something he became very good at. He waited for Elena countless times, on numerous airports throughout the years of their acquaintance, relationship, then marriage... And now he was waiting for Cassie. He smiled involuntarily. It was hard to believe that his Cassandra was already eighteen. Nate felt as if it was just yesterday when he was standing in this very place, holding little Cassie by the hand and waiting for Elena to show up in that entrance. It was never easy - Cassie was always a restless soul. She wanted to explore literally everything. She was scanning the environment with her wide, cautious eyes, squirming restlessly and trying very hard to somehow slip her little hand out of Nate's grasp.

"'Scuse me, sir…"

Nate turned back, but he didn't see anybody first; then he lowered his gaze and noticed a boy, somewhat around Cassie's age from his recent memories. He was also very alike - he had golden hair and wide, brown eyes.

"You're…" Nate hesitated, then looked around. "You're talking to me?"

"You're Nathan Drake, right?" the boy asked, clasping a smartphone in his hands. "Nathan Drake from the D&F Fortunes, right?"

Nate raised his eyebrows, then kicked his heels.

"Maybe," he replied, then made a straight face. "It depends who's asking. If I owe you some money, then no."

The boy's eyes became even wider and he opened his mouth in a shock, unable to say a single word. He looked very funny and confused and sheepish. Nate smiled and crouched in front of the kid.

"I'm joking," he said merrily, then extended his hand. "Nathan Drake. And who are you?"

The boy finally closed his mouth and returned the smile, then shook Nate's hand.

"Kevin," he said. "Wow, that's incredible. I love your and mrs Elena shows… When I grow up I want to become an explorer, just like you!"

Nate chuckled. Apparently little Kevin didn't hear the news about him yet. "Cool."

"May I have a picture with you?" the boy lifted his smartphone up a Nate's eye level. "Please… Either way nobody will believe me that I met you here!"

"Sure," Nate answered without hesitation. He chuckled in spirit, then he let the boy stand near him and grinned towards the camera.

It wasn't his first _selfie_ with a fan but this time… it seemed different. Nate had an awkward feeling that people in the terminal were watching him and pointing at him. He shook Kevin's hand one more time and then noticed his parents standing at the exit. They didn't look the happiest and they quickly walked out of the terminal as soon as their son approached them. Nate looked around noticing many people fleeing from his gaze and hiding their smartphones.

That was creepy.

He tried to act natural as if he didn't see them and looked at his watch. It was 9:55 PM and no sign of Cassie. He began to feel uncomfortable. Then his cellphone vibrated. It was Elena.

"Nate, I parked over the exit, but a bit illegally… It's a lot for families with children," he heard her voice in the speaker. "Cassie's still not here?"

"Eeemm…" Nate hesitated and stared at the floor, trying to avoid other people's gazes. "No, she's not. Not yet."

"You're okay?"

He wasn't at all.

"Of course," he replied, straightening himself up and then he noticed the familiar gold, long hair and black-framed glasses appearing at the entrance. "Oh, wait, she's here!"

He flipped his cellphone closed and rushed at the end of the barriers. Cassie quickly noticed her father and sent him a tired smile.

"Hi sweetheart," he sent her a grin.

" _Ave pater_ ," Cassie greeted him shortly in Latin and held him her a huge luggage instead of a welcome hug. "Geez, I don't feel my legs…"

"I missed you, too. Jesus-!" Nate gasped as he lifted the luggage. "Ain't we got stones here that you have to fly them in?!"

Cassie stretched her arms above her head. "Not my fault that all those old books have such thick bindings…"

"Ah, of course," Nate snorted. "I forgot. We ain't got at home _any_ old books either..."

Cassie turned and gave him a look.

"This," she pointed on her luggage and lowered her voice to a whisper, "is the most incredible, outstanding, mysterious, ancient thing you'll ever see, old man. It's unbelievable how many interesting things you can buy on the bazaars over the Seine… Just wait 'till we come home."

Nate rose his eyebrows. "I'm dying to see it."

"Mr Drake, may we speak for a second?"

Nate turned. Right behind him stood a short, stocky man with dark glasses and greasy hair, wearing a striped shirt. The man lifted something that resembled a press card at Nate's eye level.

"Chris Compi, 'The Morning News'. Would you mind answering a few quick questions for our readers?"

Nate bit his lip. "Nice to meet you Chris, but if you haven't noticed," he replied, lifting Cassie's luggage up, "I'm a bit busy now. You can contact my manager-"

"Oh, I won't take much time for you," the reporter fired back and took the portable microphone out of his shirt pocket. "How would you describe the latest revelations about your past?"

"Jesus," Cassie gasped and pulled her father by a sleeve. Suddenly onlookers started closing on them with their smartphones. "Dad, c'mon..."

"'Scuse me," Nate growled and followed his daughter towards the exit from the terminal. Suddenly he got blinded by the photoflash lamp in front of him. It came from a camera held by a guy in gray tracksuit. Nate didn't notice him before.

"What the hell?"

Another flash, but this time less surprising. Nate and Cassie picked up the pace, but Chris apparently didn't care and nearly stuck a portable microphone into Nate's face. "Would you call it a 'provocation'? 'Slanderous lies?' Or maybe a 'well-thought and long-term image campaign'?"

Nate frowned at the guy while walking.

"Man, seriously…?" he blurted before he could think better of it. He heard Cassie's voice and felt her grip on his forearm, as she was drawing him faster towards the exit.

"Ah!" Chris unexpectedly exclaimed. "So this is! That's the story! Those revelations are true!"

"'Scuse me," Nate interrupted him and headed fast after Cassie, passing by the photographer, "Cassie, run!"

Unfortunately, the reporter wouldn't let them go - he and his photographer ran after them all the way to the exit. Nate only wished he remembered where this goddamn lot for families was… They practically darted away out of the terminal, leaving the fatty journalist behind, but the photographer was much more in shape and he was still chasing them shooting photos every five steps.

Finally, there was their jeep. Elena waved at them and hoot the horn at them. Cassie and Nate reached the car and jumped in as fast as they could.

"Oh, finally!" Elena greeted them. "Few minutes more and I'd have to pay a ticket…"

"Drive!" Nate exclaimed breathlessly as he slammed the door behind him. "Fast!"

Elena blinked, then noticed a guy with the camera on the pavement. "Nate, what's-"

"Floor it, mom!" Cassie shouted from the back seat and that was sufficient for Elena to quickly turn on the engine and tear off the parking, leaving the fatty reporter and his photographer behind somewhere in the dumbfounded airport's crowd.

"Guys, could somebody fill me in?" Elena asked exasperatedly when they reached the highway. "What the hell happened? You're stuck at the airport for almost half an hour and then you're unexpectedly running away from it like if there was some terrorist's attack!"

"Chris Compi," Nate sighed, being finally able to place Cassie's bag on the car's floor between his legs and belt himself up. "I guess y'know the guy?"

Elena thought for a second.

"…I see," she answered then snorted. "Of course I know him."

"Lowest-class, shit-eating, hack reporter…" Cassie muttered from the back seat. "But how did he knew you'd be on the airport?"

"Maybe we're being followed?" Nate asked nervously.

"I guess he was simply traveling somewhere, like everybody. And suddenly Nate came in his way and he couldn't miss such an opportunity," Elena remarked.

Nate raised his eyebrows.

"You mean it's normal for reporters to travel along with their fully-equipped photographers?" he asked, but then noticed Elena's surprised look. "Oh… right," he sighed, remembering Nepal and giving up. "You're right. It can be normal."

"By the way, it's great to see you sunshine," Elena smiled at Cassie through the driving mirror. "Had a nice flight?"

"I've had better," Cassie smiled back lazily and draw her smartphone out of her pocket and switched it on. That way Nate and Elena already knew that they lost her attention completely for at least fifteen minutes.

Elena gave Nate a quick, yet a bit concerned look.

"Did you tell him anything?"

"I… don't think so," Nate answered. "Anything in particular. We bolted the moment we met him."

"Good," Elena patted him on his thigh and quickly held the wheel back with both hands. "It's not the best time for a talk with them now".

"You think that it'd be someday?" Nate smirked.

"Maybe," Elena replied. "But certainly not now."

Suddenly the sky got lightened by a great lighting and their car slightly quaked because of a loud thunder.

"Oh my," Elena hissed, turning the wipers on the higher level. "I really hope our house's still standing…"

"Well… Maybe it'd be better if it was ruined to the ground?" Cassie suddenly sighed, then shrugged when her parents' shocked eyes glared at her from the front seat. "Maybe then they'd leave us in peace. I mean - homeless celebrities are no fun."

Elena snorted.

"She's truly your daughter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 - What the Day Brings**

It was raining all night.

Nate couldn't sleep. He was lying on his side on the bed, listening to steady sound of Elena's breathing and old Vicky's snores from the corridor. Every time he tried to keep his eyes closed and concentrate on sleeping, the sound of raindrops pounding against the roof seemed much louder to him than it really was and kept distracting him. He finally gave up this fight and frowned mindlessly through the window over Elena's bare shoulder, waiting for sleep to come by itself. But it didn't come. Just like it didn't the previous two nights in a row; during that time Nate only managed to sleep a couple of hours just before the morning came.

That was something new to him. During all his life he never had problems with sleeping. Of course, when he was working on something he could stay awake even for days, then he was always out like a light, everywhere where it was possible - mainly on Sully's couch, on the backseat of his car or in low-rate hostels in the most exotic places across the planet. It was the same after a day full of exploring, shooting and running for his life... But then, when he settled down, he appreciated afternoon naps that he had trained to perfection during Cassie's childhood, especially with her little body sprawled on his belly. He got used to them and enjoyed taking an afternoon nap once in a while, with a book on his lap. But insomnia? No, that just wasn't his problem, ever. Until now.

Nate glanced at the alarm clock on Elena's nightstand. It was already 4:23 AM. _Crap_ , he whined in mind and rolled onto his back, facing the ceiling.

He didn't have the exact idea what was distracting him from sleeping for a couple last days and that was probably pissing him the most. He probably could give himself an answer to that question, but he already didn't like the sound of it. He didn't want to admit before himself and everybody else that this goddamn news fuss was bothering him so much. He never cared about other peoples' opinions. If he'd have cared, he wouldn't be whom he was now. His whole life would have been different if he wouldn't have left the orphanage with Sam that October night, so many years ago and start their adventurers' life. His whole life he wasn't like the ordinary people. So, if he was so okay with it, then what was making him feel so nervous at the same time?

He made a sigh, not really sure what to think. He made a promise that he was done with this life, but… What was he expecting? That he'll change everything just like that? Why? Because he had a caprice of becoming a 'white-bread, picket-fence type', like Chloe once called him?

Maybe it was impossible from the beginning to change things just like that, pretend like nothing happened, no matter how hard he tried…? No matter how hard he stuck to this plan... Nate still didn't like that thought but he was coming to terms with it; a couple years ago he'd think totally the different.

 _Stupid_ , he reprimanded himself. How was it even possible for him to forget about his all crimes for so long and, above all, make everyone else forget about this...

 _Crimes_.

 _Time to face it, Nate_ , he said to himself in thoughts, swallowing. _For them you're a criminalist. A thief, tomb robber, a burglar and_ …

His stomach twisted when a sound of rustling sheets woke him out of his thoughts. He looked over at Elena. She squirmed in her sleep then rolled on her side and scooted over to Nate nesting herself at his side. Then she suddenly opened her eyes, looking at him tiredly.

"Still not sleeping…?" she asked quietly, blinking.

Nate rolled on his side to face her and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him. "I'm all right. Go back to sleep."

"What's wrong, Nate?" Elena murmured into his chest, returning the hug. "It's another night when you're not sleeping at all."

Nate chuckled nervously. He sometimes thought that she had some kind of a third eye that was constantly surveying him and his actions. Maybe even his thoughts.

Hopefully not.

"No, I'm sleeping," he replied and snored. "See?"

"Nate," he heard her warning whisper and gave up on his wise-ass talk.

He sighed reluctantly, pressing his cheek to Elena's and caressing gently the small of her back through the sheets. "I dunno why, I just… can't sleep."

Elena was silent for a moment, then she looked up at him and cupped his face. Her eyes were still blurry from sleep and nearly black because of wide pupils, but the little light that came into the room through open window-blinds made her loose hair gleam magically in silver.

"I know. It all doesn't matter," she whispered. "I'm telling you, it'll eventually stop. I know how these guys work. They might be saying nasty things now, but in a week or two nobody will talk about this anymore. We just need to survive this…"

Nate looked at her with his bright eyes. Now, like many times before, he wanted to say so many things and, in the same moment, his words simply wouldn't come out. He wanted to believe her. He had enough of this situation. He was tired of being in the spotlight, but surprisingly… he was now starting to get tired of Elena and Cassie talking about him and his state of mind over and over again in that concerned and comforting tone…

It wasn't like he didn't fight worse shit before, right?

"Yeah," he sighed, waving off his thoughts. "Survive. I can do this. Done it hundreds times before."

Elena smiled widely.

" _We_ can," she emphasized, gently stroking his cheek. "And we will. Frankly speaking, we survived worse things that they don't have even a slightest idea about."

Nate chuckled and shifted his hand up her spine to her shoulder blade.

"Better not telling them. If UNESCO would have heard, how many forgotten civilizations I actually destroyed…"

Elena laughed. "No, that's definitely not advisable!"

Nate smiled at her then planted his hand on the back of her neck. Elena looked up at him and smiled when he stroked her cheek with his thumb. Those were the moments that he adored. When the world, the past and present, was reduced to her gorgeous smile. Time changed both of them; they became older, wrinkles appeared on their faces, got a few more white hairs on head… but the thing that didn't change was the happiness of being together and some kind of pride - that they're here despite everything that happened before between them...

"…I love you so much."

"I know."

Nate raised his eyebrow.

"…And?"

Elena snickered then kissed him softy in his lips. "You know that, cowboy," she whispered and started rolling on her other side. "Now hug me tight and try to fall asleep."

Nate snorted then curled against her back, wrapping his arm around her waist. Elena backed into him and intertwined their fingers, pressing his hand to her chest.

"See you in the morning," he heard Elena's whisper.

"Yeah," he replied, kissing her temple.

And he closed his eyes, breathed-in air, relaxed… but in a few minutes he felt Elena's chest steadily rising and falling in a sleepy rhythm. That moment was gone and he was alone again, drowning in his demonic thoughts. Still unable to sleep, but now additionally physically crippled by his wife's grip. He sighed and gazed at the alarm clock again.

4:45 AM.

He tried to count seconds to another minute just to wave off the bad thoughts, but that anxiety kept coming back every time when the number on the clock was changing.

 _That was my choice. My hands and my free will._

… _Did I ever regret this?_

 _Should I regret this?_

He realized that he never felt so alone before.

* * *

~ To be continued.

Demons of the past are starting to frisk in Nate's mind and his thinking is changing. Elena's still completely unaware of what's happening with Nate.

And I am slowly approaching to a moment in this story that I don't exactly like.

And I guess nobody would like…


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 - Et tu, Brute, contra me**

After almost three hours of unsteady and shallow sleep, Nate welcomed the morning light with a sigh of relief. The slow defeat of darkness meant that his struggle for sleep was over for some time. He rolled onto his side and glanced mindlessly through the window. It finally stopped raining and the late-morning sun illuminated the bushes outside the house, that were covered in leaves and broken branches after the storm. Elena wasn't in bed anymore and judging by the time on the clock - 10:44 AM - there was nothing surprising in it. Nate reluctantly and not without any struggle got out of the bed and went straight to the bathroom to get himself ready for another day. _It's gonna be a good day_ , he repeated to himself, gazing at his reflection in the mirror.

When he got out the bedroom and went to the living room, he found both of his girls already awake. The room was filled with light and fresh sea breeze came through the half-opened external doors.

"Look who's finally awake!" Elena greeted Nate cheerfully with a smile and walked away from the table. "Would you like coffee?"

"Definitely… A huge pot of it would be just great," Nate groaned, walking over to her and kissing her cheek. "Hey Cas," he greeted his daughter, that was sprawled in her armchair next to the window with her legs on the small coffee table. She just waved at him, staring into her tablet.

Nate inhaled air in his lungs. Something smelled really nice and tasty. "What's for breakfast?"

"Breakfast?" Cassie blurted, clearing her throat and looking up at him. "It's almost eleven o'clock! We should eat lunch by now."

Nate called Vicky to come over and stroked her head. "I've had a hard night, and now I'm starving," he said, then let Vicky turn and walk outside the house. "Have at least a little mercy on me, Cassie."

"That's cute," Cassie snickered, then returned to her tablet..

"I have three toasts with cinnamon left," Elena informed from the kitchen. "You want some?"

"Oh, I love them," Nate sighed and made himself comfortable in his chair. _That's a nice beginning of a day_ , he thought, looking through the windows at the ocean. Its color changed since yesterday, like usually after the stormy night - it was lighter and now calm like a lake. Nate took a peek at the size of damages. There was much work to do around the house after the storm, but then he'd have time to just relax. He'd check on the books Cassie brought, maybe find some interesting new stuff…

In the meantime, Elena brought him food and sat next to him. "Did you sleep at night after we spoke?"

Nate looked at her and nodded. "Yeah," he said firmly, grinning. "I fell instantly asleep."

Elena smiled, then opened her laptop. They sat like that for some time, talking about random things, like every day… except that for a couple times Elena's face went straight and a bit stressed when she frowned at the screen and read something quickly. Then she'd write something fast and roughly on the keyboard, take a generous sip of coffee and act like nothing happened, with a smile back on her face. Nate knew what was she getting stressed about and he came to a conclusion that maybe passing another day without his laptop and Internet isn't such a bad idea.

When he finished eating and stuck to his coffee, old Vicky returned into the house, leaving traces of wet sand on the wooden floor. Nate grimaced at her when she looked up at him with some kind of astonishment in her eyes.

"Couldn't you learn to use a doormat?" he grumped in her direction. "You know, who'll have to clean this mess?"

The dog whimpered.

"That's right," said Nate. " _I_ will have to."

"Come Vicky," Elena merrily called the dog and rose from her chair. "Time to take your meds!"

The dog barked miserably twice, like if she knew what she had to do, then followed her mistress slowly through the corridor. Nate looked after Vicky - she was visibly getting older and weaker, every day. Her movements got slower, she made every step with caution, her golden hair lost its softness. For the last three months she was regularly visiting the vet and was taking special pharmaceuticals for animals. But she was still very playful and friendly, which - like the vet said - proved that she was still feeling fairly well.

Nate turned his head and glanced at his daughter. Cassie was very concentrated on something in the tablet and was listening to something through one of the earphones. When she was concentrating on something, she was fixing her whole attention on the object - just like him. Cassie definitely inherited many personality traits from Nate and the idea that they were so much alike made him feel somehow very proud. She learned new ancient and modern languages with so much ease, she was the history expert and brilliant like any other person Nate knew. Nate smiled involuntarily; well, perhaps except her mother.

He placed his hand on his chin and observed his daughter. Next year, he thought, it would be a good time for Cassie to choose studies she'd like to start. Now she was taking her gap year after the college, travelling across the world, mainly with her boyfriend Joe, or by herself. She loved photography, just like Elena. She was taking breath-taking pictures then she'd post them on her blog, which already got very popular across the Internet. Nate and Elena always wished her to become such a woman: independent, curious, smart, filled with wanderlust and love to the world. And there she was, with her natural beauty and her easiness.

"What?" Cassie asked unexpectedly, a smile forming on her face, when she noticed her father staring at her.

"Nothing," Nate answered, smiling back to her. "What'cha doin?" he asked casually, still looking at her.

"Checking news," Cassie murmured and sipped her coffee slowly. "Mostly 'bout you, I guess."

Nate whined loudly and rubbed his eyes. His originally good mood got ruined in seconds.

"Cassie… I beg you, girl, stop looking at it…"

"Why?" Cassie asked negligently.

"Because I ask you to."

Cassie snorted with a flack. Obviously she was old enough not to be scared of her father and her 'defiance' period in life didn't end yet. Unfortunately.

Suddenly Cassie's eyes went wide.

"Dad-" she sighed.

"What?" Nate asked, already getting upset.

"I think you should see this," Cassie said, pointing at the tablet screen.

Nate groaned and leaned back in his chair. "Christ! Cassie, I asked you something. I'm not in the mood to look at this shit."

"No, I mean it!" the girl raised her voice. "You have to see it! There's a guy here saying that he was hiring you years ago."

Nate looked up and frowned in surprise at Cassie.

"…What?"

"I mean it. See by yourself!" Cassie said and pointed at her tablet again.

Nate hesitated once more, then stood up and reluctantly walked over to Cassie. When he took a peek on the screen over her shoulder, he budged slightly at the sight of an old man in the embedded video on "The Morning News" webpage. The video was paused and that man was standing in the middle of some cozy country house with an awkwardly open mouth, like if he was about to say something. Nate felt his stomach twist. He didn't see that man for a pretty long time.

"Rewind it," he said firmly after a second.

"Dad, who's that old man?"

"I'll tell you later," Nate answered, then reached impatiently for the tablet, but Cassie was much faster; she immediately clicked on the button that blocked the screen. In an instant the video vanished and when Nate held the device, the screen was completely black. He tried to push the same button again, but what he saw on the screen was a huge inscription "Cassandra Drake's Property. Please enter the PIN code."

"What did you do?" Nate whined. "Make it play!"

"I want to know," Cassie stated and pointed at the black screen again. "Who is he?"

Nate glared at her. "I said: _later_ ," he replied firmly. "Now unblock that Devil's device and play the video."

"Not a chance," Cassie said and crossed her arms on her chest. "I'm not a kid anymore, and I want to know everything."

Nate braced on his arms against the backrest of the Cassie's armchair over her shoulders. In the duel with his tech-educated daughter, that was already born in a world of Internet, practically with a smartphone in her hand, he was left with any chance.

"You know that what you're doing now is torture?"

Cassie snickered devilishly.

"Oh you poor thing. You can end those tortures easily by telling me who's this guy!"

Nate sighed and gave up.

"He's my former boss."

"Yeah, y'know, that I was able to deduct myself," Cassie snorted. "You should put more effort into it."

Nate rolled his eyes. _What a stubborn girl_ , he thought. _Whom did she inherit that from?_

"Fine. It's Jameson. I worked at his salvage company as a diver for a couple years. Then, after Libertalia, we bought that company from him and it was our first salvage equipment that served for us for a long time before-"

"Our?" Cassie interrupted him.

"Mine and your mother's, Sherlock!" Nate replied, then passed on the device to Cassie. "Happy with the answer? You've had your information, now rewind the video!"

"What's going on, guys?" Nate heard Elena's voice from behind his back. He straightened himself up and swallowed.

"They've got Jameson," he announced, pointing at the tablet in Cassie's hands.

It took a moment for Elena to get the message, but when she did, she raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Who's got Jameson?"

"'The Morning News' does," Cassie said and unblocked the tablet, then waved at her parents. "C'mere and watch."

Both Nathan and Elena stood behind her armchair and Cassie played the video from the beginning. It was entitled "Newest on Drake's Secrets - Sticky Job Interview". It started with a well-detailed and rather unpleasant close-up of Chris Compi's fatty and oily face.

"That asshole again!" Nate whimpered, but Elena and Cassie hushed him.

 _This is Chris Compi, 'The Morning News', I'm in a small town near New Orleans, heading to meet Nathan Drake's former employer called Jameson. It is recalled that Nathan Drake started working as a diver at the salvage company after he got back from the voyages to Syria and Yemen - as we all know, the further details on these expeditions are still unknown to us, but-! To our surprise, everywhere Nathan Drake went, unexpected things always happened, like the mysterious night shooting at the Crusader's Rock in Syria… But this is the news for the other material…_

Elena glowered at Nate. "Of course, walking into the museum during the visiting hours it's just not your style."

"Oh, shut up," Nate whined.

Then the view changed and they saw an old man, that was walking through a cozy living room. It was definitely Jameson, though he looked different. His hair turned completely white, he walked as if he was folded in half, taking slow and small steps. Nate was shocked. Jameson was "only" fifteen years older than him and he already looked like a grampa.

Jameson on the video settled himself comfortably in the armchair and Chris Compi sat next to him.

 _Sir, how did you meet Nathan Drake?,_ asked Chris.

Old Jameson raised his grey eyebrows and took a deep breath. _I remember him very well_. _He was a very talented diver. The best I ever had - and I met a bunch of them in my life!_

"Of course I was the best," scoffed Nate. Elena kicked him with her elbow.

 _Yeah, but-_ , Chris interrupted him and leaned closer to his interlocutor's ear. _Could you tell us about the circumstances of your acquaintance?_

Jameson furrowed his eyebrows. _If I remember correctly, I posted a notice that I'm looking for a diver, and he… he just appeared at the doorstep to my office in New Orleans._

 _Sir, did you know anything about his past when you were hiring him?,_ asked Chris.

 _Well, I knew he had a good experience in diving. He was an average guy, y'know, like everybody else._

 _So there was no talk about his criminal past?_ , inquired Chris.

"He told you that already, dickhead!" Nate hissed, clenching his fist and feeling his pulse quickening.

 _Well, there was nothing to talk about,_ Jameson said sadly. _He brought his criminal record. He was clean like a newborn._

At that moment Cassie and Elena frowned at Nate with wide eyes, completely shocked.

"You…" Elena gasped, "you brought him _what_?"

Nate froze. He felt his mouth go dry. He stared mindlessly at Jameson from the movie material, who was searching through his old documents from The Jameson Marine Company and handed over to Chris a piece of paper.

 _So,_ Chris said, carefully taking the sheet of paper into his hands. _Do you mean, that Nathan Drake gave you this document when he came here to ask for a job?_

Jameson shrugged. _Absolutely._

 _We shall let our viewers see closely to this document…_ Chris continued, and on the screen appeared the scan of the record, with erased address data and other personally identifiable information. It clearly showed that a person called Nathan Drake was never arrested, convicted, there are no charges brought against him and he's not wanted by an international arrest warrant…

Nate swallowed hard, hearing a sound of cellphone ringing from the bedroom and a popping sound of incoming messages on Elena's laptop. The hounds were already sent after them.

 _Sir, was this document_ , Chris Compi continued after the document vanished from the screen, _brought to you on your demand?_

 _My… I don't remember exactly…_ , Jameson sighed and scratched the back of his head. _But I think that… no, I didn't ask for it. I didn't exactly care about my employees' past. It doesn't mean anything if a diver was convicted, he's not a secretary, an accountant or something… But what can I say, that record was also a positive aspect of Nate's candidature. I could believe he was an honest man. So I decided to hire him._

 _Were you shocked when you heard the news about Nathan Drake's true past?_ , Chris Campi asked.

 _Like hell I was,_ sighed Jameson. _Look, he was my best worker…_

 _Are you feeling mislead by Nathan Drake?,_ Chris inquired.

Jameson crossed his arms on his chest and went silent for a moment, glancing at the camera. Nate froze. He felt uneasy seeing this always indulgent Jameson apparently disappointed by him.

 _Y'know, man?_ , Jameson sighed after a moment. _Guess there's no need to talk 'bout it anymore. Years passed and I'm not a memory guy… Just let him be…_

 _I see. Sir, thank you so much for your time,_ Chris interrupted him and stood from his place, then faced the camera. _But this is not the end of the story for our viewers. We shall dig the case further for you. Our sources show that this document could be produced around twenty years ago, so maybe, unfortunately, the case might be still in the officers' interest. We'll keep you updated with the newest news on our webpage in "The Drake-Gate" section…_

"Drake-Gate…?" Cassie whined.

… _That was Chris Compi, 'The Morning News', goodbye._

The video ended and the room filled with silence, interrupted by a constant ringing of a cellphone. Nate glanced hesitantly at Elena, but she didn't look at him; she was standing still, clenching her fists. She looked like she was about to explode. Cassie, on the other hand, didn't even turn her head to look at her parents, as if she was afraid of what she was about to see.

Nate swallowed hard and swayed his body from side to side. Apparently his plan to pass a normal, peaceful day was about to go south.

"Elena…" Nate finally spoke out.

She turned to face him and Nate almost made a step back at the sight of a fury in her eyes. "Is it true?"

Nate raised his eyebrows. "What… exactly?"

"The forgery," Elena pointed at Cassie's tablet.

Nate shrugged, trying to play dumb. He felt his cheeks burn. "Elena, it's not like that…"

"Nate, don't bullshit me. Did you do this?" Elena hissed.

Nate face straightened. He didn't want it to turn like this, he had enough of this talk. He looked away from Elena and walked away from Cassie's armchair.

"Christ, Nate!" Elena groaned after him. "Answer me! I'm not even sure if you wouldn't have a case on that!"

"Yes!" he blurted out, turning on his heels to face her. "I did this. That criminal record was forged. Happy?"

At this point Cassie scoffed and put her earphones on with a sigh of disapproval. Elena walked over to Nate and stood between him and the door to the house.

"Nate…"

"I'm going to clean up this mess after the storm," he announced coldly. He wasn't looking at her.

"Nate," Elena grasped his forearm. " _Why_ didn't you tell me?"

He didn't say anything, straightened himself up, pulled his hand out of her grasp and went through the door. Surprised Vicky followed him to the beach and the door closed after them.

Elena sighed and rubbed her eyes, then came over to Cassie and sat next to her.

"Overall…" Cassie sighed unexpectedly pulling out the earphones, "forging a criminal record isn't the biggest of his issues… Maybe you shouldn't be so angry on him."

Elena smiled sadly.

"Maybe," she sighed. "But I hate being always the last to know."

~To be continued.

More action into the story, more psychological stuff ahead. I believe Jameson never knew about Nate's past… his past is just too complicated and I don't think that they were friendly enough to talk about this. But I guess they liked each other and Jameson could feel a bit betrayed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6 - Whatever it Takes**

He felt much better outside. He always did, and now it was far then obvious to him. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, letting his lungs fill with oxygen to its limits like after the long dive, then exhaled it with a loud sigh. The air was fresh and light, the sand pleasantly chill and, what's the most important, he couldn't hear those goddamn ringtones here. Just him, the wind, the ocean and the post-storm mess to clean up.

A touch of warm fur around his calf reminded him about one more being present on the beach. He looked down at Vicky and patted her head. She appreciated the pets with frisking and lied down on sand, apparently readying herself to watch her master cleaning the whole beach by himself. Nate looked at her and chuckled.

"You scoffer," he said. "I could use some help, y'know?"

But Vicky made just an innocent face and ducked her head. Perhaps she had a different opinion.

Nate sighed, rolled up the sleeves of his jeans shirt and got to work, while his mind wandered back in time.

 _This is probably his last chance._

 _Nate reaches the parking and gets out of his car. It's getting late, the sun's slowly setting over the New Orleans, painting the city with orange glow. The harbor is rather crowdy; few bigger and smaller boats just reached the dock and are unpacking their supplies and other goods, while passengers and members of the crew come on land and soon part in different directions._

 _Nate grits his teeth. He's got enough of this shit. It'll be his twelfth job interview - third in this very week. He's been to various places already - a travel agency, a supermarket, the security agency at the airport, the amusement park… even the city library. To be honest, he liked the most the idea of a job in library - he wouldn't have to do much stuff and would be gained access to all those old books... But in each place he was asked the same thing, on which he couldn't give any good answer - his previous employment and goddamn criminal record. Although he tried different lies and dodges, tried his charming skills and presented his strong sides, every interview ended with a frown of disapproval on his interlocutor's face and the identical polite line, that they "appreciate his candidature" and "they'll call him back"._

 _None of them ever did._

 _Nate sighs and looks down on the sheet of paper he holds in his hands. He never thought he'd come to the point in life in which he'll have to do this. He never, ever planned this to happen. While he was younger, he just didn't care about the future. The most important thing was the present. Now, getting "normal" was far more difficult than he originally thought it to be. Plus, he didn't like the feeling of humiliation that he was left with after every single interview. He had a feeling that he doesn't belong to this world and nobody wants him to be here._

 _But he really wants to try. He has somebody to do it for. Again and - probably - for the last time. And he can't - he just can't - screw this up once more. Even if it means overturning every single thing in his life upside down…_

 _It's worth it._

 _He looks up at the harbor, hesitates for another second, then doubles the sheet and puts it in his trousers pocket. "If this won't work", he thinks, "nothing will"._

 _He walks the cracking pace, trying to thread his way through the harbor crowd heading in an opposite direction. When he finally reaches the quay, the huge barge with an inscription "Jameson's Salvage" already leaves the shore. He's surprised. It's definitely the right one but… why they're leaving? Nate runs in its direction._

" _Hey!" he shouts at the people on the barge as he reaches the edge of the quay. "Aren't you guys looking for a diver?!"_

 _Few men on board of the barge notice him, but don't say anything. Nate waves at them. They're not far away from him and he's sure they can hear him clearly._

" _Hey! I've… I've come for a job interview!"_

" _Holy shit, I forgot," Nate finally hears the voice and notices a black man approaching the side of the barge from the captain deck's side. He's wearing a white cap and already very stained red overalls. He's probably the boss here, thinks Nate. The man reaches the rails and waves back at Nate. "Sorry pal, just wait a minute… Full astern, guys, we need to get back!"_

" _No need!" shouts back Nate, then makes three or four steps backwards._

" _Wait-" Jameson says, then his eyes go wide at the sight of that young man, evidently preparing to run. The gap between the shore and the barge is about six meters. "Hey, stop, you'll kill yourself-"_

 _He doesn't get the chance to finish the sentence, as Nate sprints with full speed towards the end of the quay and makes an impressive, long jump over the water to the barge side, flinging his arms widely. He lands on his feet with a loud bang and kneels down after the landing, recovering his balance. Then he gets up and straightens himself up with a wide, a little wicked grin on his face._

" _I said: no need," he jokes, barely making even a gasp after the effort._

" _Wow," says Jameson and approaches Nate. "That was something! Where did you learned this?"_

" _Emm…" Nate quickly thinks about the answer, as the real one is too unbelievable. Like always. "Circus," he shoots back._

 _The man scoffs then extends his hand. "I'm Jameson, nice to meet you, monkey man!"_

 _Nate smiles back and shakes his hand. "Nathan Drake."_

" _So," Jameson starts, placing his hands on his hips. "You're here for a job, Mr Drake?"_

" _That's right," Nate replies. "That diver's job. I saw your notice on the Internet."_

" _I see," Jameson says and surveys Nate discretely. "So, tell me something about you. What's your experience? How long have you been diving? Have you been diving at sea?"_

" _I have," Nate puts his hands in his pockets. "I'm diving since childhood, actually, of course I have my license... Regarding sea diving, I dived at the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean, I also have some experience in river diving… I…"_

 _Nate hesitated. Crap. Again, how to put all his past 'experience' in words so it fits the social bonds? He decides for the simplest answer._

" _I was looking for lost treasures…"_

" _Oh, so you're a treasure hunter?" Jameson chuckles. "Okay, y'know, that's kinda funny. That's our job: the client calls up that he's lost the cargo. We need to locate the shipwreck, find the cargo and get it onshore. So, we are kind of treasure hunters too."_

" _Nice," Nate grins, then makes a sigh. "So I guess we could make a good team."_

 _Jameson frowns at him for a minute. Nate waits, realizing that this old man is probably making his decision now. His heart speeds, he hopes for the best._

" _Okay, well…" Jameson continues after some time as he scratches the back of his head. "I guess I'll consider your candidature. Expect my call in a few days."_

 _Shit._

 _Nate feels growing panic in his chest. Not the same line again. He wants to work here, he's perfect for the job, and the guy need a worker… Everything is perfect. What did he do wrong this time? What he's supposed to say to Elena when he comes back home…?_

 _Then he remembers the ace that waited in the back pocket of his pants._

" _Sir," he gasps and reaches back to his pocket. Now or never. "I brought… I brought my criminal record. Some employers ask for it, so…" he hands over the bended sheet of paper._

 _Jameson frowns at the paper and takes it. Nate swallows hard as he watches every single move of this old man. He feels nervous and hopeful at the same time._

" _Sir," Nate starts, clenching his fists inside his pockets and trying to act natural. "I… I really need this job."_

 _Then Jameson looks up at him and grins._

" _I usually like to think for a bit before making such decisions," he says, "but I kinda like you, man. I'm taking you on."_

 _Nate's eyes go wide and a huge smile appears on his face. "Thank you, sir!"_

" _Just call me Jameson," Jameson smiles back. "You're starting from tomorrow. Meet you here at the harbor at five o'clock. We have a job north of the city… after this summer's storms there's a lot of stuff to get from the bottom of the bay."_

" _I'll be there!" Nate replies and turns on his heel towards the boat side. "You won't regret it, sir!"_

" _At least let us get you nearer to the shore this time-" Jameson shouts after him, but Nate already sprints and makes another great jump over the water towards the quay. Unfortunately, he's got too little space to gain speed and he catches the concrete edge of the quay with his hands, while his feet hit the surface of the water._

" _Oh shit, are you okay?!" Jameson shouts after him, but in this very moment Nate lifts himself up on his arms and climbs the quay without further trouble. When he's already on both feet, he flick the water off his shoes and waves at Jameson merrily, while the people on the quay watch him with a bit of surprise._

" _See you tomorrow!" Nate greets his new employer and runs towards his car with full speed. Fulfilled with feeling of success, he easily and quickly forgets about the little sheet of paper, that he left in Jameson hands._

 _After triumphantly reaching home and announcing the big news, he flings himself on their bed, hugging Elena closer to him in a tight embrace and kisses her passionately, while she wraps her arms and legs around him and shivers under the touch of his hands on her body. They're finally hopeful, optimistic and certain that everything will be all right from now on. It has to be._

 _It's high time._

Nate was actually truly surprised that fishnets were this huge. The storm brought two big torn pieces of these on their beach and they became entangled in all kinds of left-overs and trash that, unfortunately, drifted in the ocean before. It wedged between the rocks on the shore and Nate had to scoop it out. It was actually a lot of work and he decided he needed a short rest.

He sat on the sand just outside the waves' range and looked up at the ocean. He could see two sailing boats in the distance, lazily sailing with the wind, and he watched them mindlessly. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to prepare a boat and take Elena and Cassie for a short voyage…?

 _Well done, genius, you actually just had a fight_ , he remembered and sighed, looking at stones that he started idly digging from the sand. _Congratulations. Guess that means that sailing flies off today._

He looked up at the ocean again. Two sailing boats practically didn't change their positions, as the wind was rather weak.

Nate scanned the horizon line, still idly digging out stones. His mind started galloping. There had to be some reason in all this… Somebody had to have some great interest in blowing up all this media madness and heat after him. Since the information about his inglorious past hit the newscast, Nate and Elena actually stopped receiving letters from the mysterious sender. So it was very likely, that the sender and the media's source was the very same, single person.

That 'somebody' had to know pretty much about him. Or have very good sources. And his English would appreciate a few lessons...

"Who the hell are you…?" Nate sighed quietly to himself for maybe a hundredth time and furrowed his eyebrows. He felt uneasy understanding that somebody might know everything about him, while he doesn't even know if he had ever met that person before. And he was feeling even more uneasy when he thought about the amount of information, that didn't hit the news yet… but any day now can…

Suddenly he felt something under his fingers that definitely didn't seem like another stone.

He looked down and brushed the sand off the little object, investigating it closely. Then he lifted his eyebrows as he realized what he actually discovered - just a few inches under the surface of his own beach.

* * *

Hello everybody, long time no see! I'm sorry for not posting for sooo long, but real life just got me so overworked that I couldn't find time to write… But now everything is back to normal, and I'm able to do things I like the most.

If it comes to my writing skills - I warned you, that this might be a long story :)

See you in next update.

P.S. After reading the last chapter I was terrified by a number of errors and typos that I made, so I uploaded a corrected and a little expanded version. If you're interested - feel free to check it out.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7 - Between Two Lives**

Nate got into their beach studio and rushed towards the bookshelves in the second room. His mind was racing, searching through remembered dates, lost civilizations and forgotten languages like an internet search engine. He was 100% sure that he saw this kind of sculpture and script before. He was drawing one book after another from the shelves and placing each of them on the table; soon he ran out of space on the table, so he started placing books on the ground around him. In no time he created quite a nice mess in the cabinet, but still couldn't find the title he was looking for.

Finally, after looting every single shelf of books, on the far and dark end of the lower locker, behind the boxes with petrification that Cassie discovered when she was climbing the glacier in Europe, he found an old, torn-out book, or rather an album, with black inscription: _The Land between Two Rivers_.

"Ha!" Nate chuckled triumphantly, brushing the dust off the surface of the book. He knew they had to have it. He made a controlled tumble from his knees to a sitting position and slumped against the bookshelf with a treasure book in his grip.

The book was visibly old and rusty, but Nate knew from his own experience, that books of this kind were actually often more useful than new publications, printed in technicolor and on thick paper. Few decades ago, publishing wasn't so cheap as it is today and before deciding on printing anything, the author had to go through a long, decent and detailed research of their own; always tried to introduce something new from himself, not just reproduce everything the others said before him. Only this way the release had the chance to reach the wider audience, which was much less indulgent than it is today. Now nearly everyone could print their own book. What's more - usually the authors don't even need to do any research. Nowadays nobody sees nothing wrong in publishing the same stuff you can copy on your own from Wikipedia. People will actually buy anything.

Nate seated himself, then reached to his pocket to drew out a treasure, that he discovered a couple quarters ago on the beach. It was a tiny, about two-inches high statuette of some kind of animal, but Nate wasn't sure about the kind because, unfortunately, its head was completely chopped off. Judging solely by the shape of its paws, fully equipped with well-detailed sculpture of claws, it probably was a lion or a tiger. The lion (tiger?) stood on two legs on a rectangular platform (slightly damaged on its edges), that was covered by mysterious lines. The other side (the base) of the platform was covered by ancient, angular script, narrowly written in stone.

"You stay here, pal," Nate murmured under his breath and gently placed the sculpture on the floor beside him, then opened the book, resting it on his knees. He surprisingly felt like a teenager again, hidden in the corner of the orphanage's library, separated from the rest of the world by the barrier of books and immersed in long-forgotten stories and ancient languages…

He was nervously flipping through pages, feeling his pulse quickening at the feeling of a new discovery, that he sensed to be hidden just behind a few following pages. He knew that the angular script on the base of the sculpture had to be the cuneiform script. But he also knew, that the people inhabiting the area of an ancient Middle East used the cuneiform script for different languages - civilizations passed this form of script to next generations, and every one of these only adjusted the script to the needs of their language. Nate found the chapter about the Sumerian language, but he quickly understood that it didn't fit the text on the sculpture; the patterns in the book seemed much more pictorial, rather similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs. So he switched to another chapter, about the Akkadian language, and held the sculpture close to his eyesight, trying to see resemblances between the original script and the alphabet presented in the book.

It fitted.

"Wow," Nate gasped and just to be sure he checked the other chapters about posterior languages of that region: Elamite language, Aramaic language, Hurrian language... None of them didn't seem to fit the script on the sculpture that much as the Akkadian did. Then he scanned through following pages, filled with prints of very similar sculptures and reliefs of lions and Akkadian warriors or kings... The lower body of his lion (or maybe a tiger?) was nearly identical in style to every of these prints.

It was so unbelievable.

"So you're Akkadian…" Nate murmured and rotated the sculpture gently in his fingers, watching it closely. "How the hell did you get here? So far from home…?"

"Nathan?"

He looked up and noticed Elena. He was so concentrated on the lion's figure that he didn't hear her come into the house and then into their room.

"Yeah?" he reacted, dumbfounded.

"Who were you talking to?" Elena asked distrustfully.

Nate glanced at the sculpture in his hand, then again at Elena, and instinctively hid the artifact into his pocket.

"Nobody," he replied, trying to sound natural. "Really."

Elena blinked, then looked around the room and made a deep sigh.

"And this?" she waved at his messy surroundings. "Could you explain to me what happened here?"

"I actually have a very good explanation," Nate quickly got up on his feet and presented the book to his wife. "This is the culprit of this mess. I couldn't find it."

Elena raised her eyebrow.

"So you've turned this room into a meteor crater while looking for a book about ancient Mesopotamia?"

Nate grinned stupidly. "Not my fault it was hidden so well. But I've won this battle," he added with pride.

Elena snorted and smiled faintly.

"I'm sure you've still got enough energy for another battle to clean this up."

"Sure," he nodded quietly and looked up at her, trying to guess her emotions. He could tell by the way she looked at him that she was still angry. There was a moment of uneasy silence, like usually after their fights.

"Good," Elena looked around one last time and then turned on her heel to go outside the house, but Nate grabbed her by her wrist.

"'Lena, wait…" he whispered, gently stopping her from walking away from him. She didn't resist and looked up at him with some kind of expectancy in her eyes. His hand didn't let her go. "I'm sorry…"

Elena watched him for an instance and nodded. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked him again.

Nate looked up with a sigh, then swayed his body from side to side, trying to buy himself some seconds to form an answer to that question. "It was right after Yemen, I couldn't find a job… If I told you what I was going to do, you would oppose… and…"

"I remember," she replied softly, taking his hand and intertwining their fingers. "But still, you should have told me…"

"I know," Nate nodded with guilt. "I just… I didn't want to make you worry… again."

The moment he spoke those words out he cursed in his thoughts, understanding their bleakness way too late. This wasn't making things better in any way… Hearing this, Elena ducked her head with a loud sigh, like if she was about to continue jawing Nate for not telling her, but then she just looked up at him, smiled faintly and lowered her gaze again, letting go of his hand.

Elena wasn't the type of woman who give up easily, and Nate was nearly certain that she'd continue talking about the importance of being completely straight with each other, which includes telling about everything, even if it could make the other person worry or sad. Like she did patiently hundreds of times throughout the years.

Yet, she didn't say anything like that. She just stood there, with her hands on her hips, surveying the mess in the room. She didn't come near him, didn't act like she'd appreciate closeness between them, she didn't even look at him. Nate felt his body instinctively and automatically backing away from her to a safe distance, few inches more than at the arm's length. Both sensed the wide wall of silence growing between them with every ticking second.

That moment was alarmingly unusual. But it didn't happen for the first time.

"I'm not in the mood for cooking," Elena whispered finally, breaking the silence. "I'm going to order some take-out, and you better clean this up."

"Yeah," Nate replied silently.

Elena turned slowly and walked out of the room, directing her steps to the exit doors. Nate watched her silhouette walking away from him, unable to understand what was actually happening between them right now. He felt lost, his heart stopped as he understood that he's just standing here like an idiot, watching his wife go, and he's done literally _nothing_ to make things better.

What led to this situation…?

"'Lena," he called after her.

She stopped at the doorstep and turned back to him. "Yeah?"

"We can't continue like this…" Nate started, then swallowed. "I mean… I can't stand those dickheads any longer... We shouldn't just sit here and watch as they ride roughshod over us…"

Elena braced herself against the doorframe and made a sigh. "Do we have any other options, Nate?"

"I don't know," Nate replied, and then an illumination came to his mind. "Maybe we should sue them."

Elena raised her eyebrows. "Sue them? For what?"

"For saying this shit! 'Lena…" he continued, walking out of the room in her direction. "It's enough. We've waited silently long enough-"

Elena looked at him with mistrust, placing her hands on her hips again. "Suing them for saying what shit, Nate? Are they lying?"

Nate stopped dead and frowned at Elena.

"What…?" he breathed, startled but certain that he's misheard.

"Nate…" Elena shook her head and looked up at him confrontationally. "Time to face the facts. _We can't act as if you never were a thief_."

Nate blinked, concerned.

These words made him feel extremely uncomfortable. It felt painful. It made his heart shake. It made him feel the same way he was feeling during his sleepless nights - alone and left behind with his demons, that he wanted to drive away so bad, in order to stay on the lighter side. To stay here as a man he's chosen to be, not as a man he was forced to become by the tracks of life.

But it suddenly became clear. He's come to a point in which he couldn't do anything. He could solely wait for this nightmare to end by itself, left on its mercy. And everything he's done until then to change became meaningless. Because to the world he was nothing but a thief.

And this life no longer belonged to him.

"…Plus, they're not crossing acceptable barriers yet," Elena continued after a short pause, that seemed like an eternity for Nate. Her voice broke into his thoughts. "We'd be left without any chances for success and it'd only deepen our crisis. We'd just have to pay large sums of money for lawyers… We need to wait it out."

Nate felt pressure in his chest, that nearly made him unable to breathe, but swallowed and ducked his head, giving up. "Maybe you're right."

Elena tilted her head, folding her arms on her chest. "Are you okay?"

Nate looked up at her, and nodded nervously. "Of course," he lied perfectly. Again.

He turned and walked back into the room, then started gathering books from the floor like if nothing happened. Few seconds later he heard the squeaking sound of the outside door closed.

Elena breathed heavily as she walked through the beach. She heard ringing in her hears, blended with the distant sound of waves. She felt restless; she was sensing that something bad was happening right now, but she wasn't still sure what was it. She was feeling overwhelmingly pity for Nate, she understood his nerves… and at the same time she was furious at herself. Since the outbreak of this media hype she was constantly wondering how she could help him. She's made thousands of phone calls to various persons, during which she didn't hesitate to use her charm or threat, wrote hundreds of e-mails… Still with no effect. She couldn't offer him any solution.

She had a feeling, that they were backing to the helpless, defensive side, with no plan for attack. But at this point, a lawsuit wasn't an option at all - she already went over that, long before Nate thought about it.

 _Hawaii pizza would be great_ , she thought with a sigh, when she was flicking the sand off her feet at the doorstep. _His favorite_.

With the last book on its place on the shelf, Nate stretched his arms above his head with a yawn. The room looked decently again and he unexpectedly felt very hungry. Nothing surprising - it was nearly three o'clock.

Then, as if driven by some invisible force, he pulled his keys out of his pocket and opened _his_ closet.

He actually didn't open it for months, if not for years, and he took a brief moment to appreciate his trophies in silence, with a slight grin forming on his face with every memory that came to his mind. He didn't need to touch anything, he felt good just by looking at those things and remembering his moments of glory. His mother's journal and the moment he found Libertalia with Sam... Spanish doubloon he took from the captain's deck on the submarine stuck in the middle of the Panamanian jungle… Powerful resin from the Tree of Life in Shambhala… His eyes searched through the inside of the closet, noticing more and more treasures he collected throughout the years.

Unexpectedly he managed to wave off all bad and pessimistic thoughts that kept him company during the clearing up. He felt… peace. He felt proud and safe. That was his legacy. He started wondering what was the exact reason he closed all this stuff in that small closet years ago…

Then he pulled the Akkadian lion's figure out of his chest pocket and rotated it in his hands, still unbelieving that he actually found it here, on his own beach, on the other side of the globe. He felt slight itching at the tops of his fingertips, like always when he was sensing some new mystery. This little finding had to hide some secret within…

"Dad!" Nate unexpectedly heard Cassie's distant calling from behind the doors, then saw her appearing at the doorstep. "Mom has ordered some pizza, it's ready."

"Nice," he replied, sticking his head out from behind the opened closet's door. "I'll join you in a minute."

Cassie tilted her head with curiosity and approached her father. "What are you doing?"

Nate looked at his daughter and grinned mischievously. Time to challenge Cassandra Drake's history skills.

"Check it out," he said, handing over the treasure. "And tell me what do you think it is."

Cassie sent him a distrustful look, then gently took the statuette in her hands, watching it closely and rotating in every direction. Nate folded his arms and surveyed his daughter patiently, curious about her reaction.

"It's made of alabaster," Cassie started after a few seconds, then furrowed her eyebrows, still watching the statuette closely. "I'm guessing it's a tiger or a lion… Judging by its style… I mean, it's visualized of its profile, I also like the shape of its paws, so it might be…"

She suddenly stopped and looked up at his father with some kind of expectancy in her eyes, but Nate only grinned.

"I don't know," he said, shrugging and teasing her. "You tell me."

Cassie bit her lower lip and frowned at the base of the statuette, studying the ancient script. Then, after few additional minutes, she looked up at Nate with confidence.

"It's surely from the Middle East, or, to be more specific: the ancient Mesopotamia. It could have been created somewhere between… the Akkadian Empire period to the Assyrian Kingdom, I'll bet. Not later. But it's certainly not older than 2300 BC. And I see the text in Akkadian script on its base, so…"

Then she handed over the sculpture to her father with a sneaky grin. "Did I pass?"

Nate chuckled and took the finding back.

"Not bad, my lady," he praised her, sending her a smile. "Not bad."

Cassie smiled widely and shown a victory sign with her fingers.

"Where did you find it, by the way?" she asked, still visibly curious about the statuette.

"On our beach," Nate replied, then admired Cassie's shocked face for an instant.

"But… how did it got here?" Cassie gasped, after she had picked up her jaw off the floor.

Nate placed the statuette on free space next to his mother's journal on the second shelf in the closet and frowned at it. "I actually have the faintest idea."

"It makes this even more awesome…" Cassie chuckled, then patted her father on his shoulder blade. "Come, or mom will eat all pizza."

"After you."

When he was locking the closet he found the terrifying conclusion, that maybe he just located the turning point in his past, that should never occur. It was obvious. Erasing the past was the worst idea he ever had.

That chapter was actually very difficult for me to write. I wanted to make it the most realistic, also basing on the realistic description of the body language.

How the Akkadian lion got to Nate's beach? That shall remain a mystery for a couple next chapters, so be patient.

See you in the next chapter! And let me know what do you think so far :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8 - A Cage**

Another three days have passed.

Constant journalists' assault through phone-calls got so unbearable, that Elena decided to order new SIM-cards for their mobile phones, along with brand new numbers. They wanted to keep them secret, proving them only to their closest ones and some D&F Fortunes employees, but it didn't help much; somebody apparently sold their new numbers to the press and soon they started getting calls from journalists even on those new, 'top secret' numbers. Last option they were left with was to cease completely their contact with the world… they weren't the fans of that option, obviously.

First of all, Cassie wasn't the fan of it. She visibly started getting bold. She was eighteen, already halfway on her gap year and she obviously didn't like the idea to be locked up in the house with her parents instead of traveling and discovering the world's wonders, meeting new people and different cultures. She quarreled with Elena more often, then she'd lock herself in her room or chat endlessly with her boyfriend Joe on the phone. She was evidently missing him, missing being on the road and she was tired of being stuck in the middle of this fuss, while she wasn't guilty at all.

Throughout these days Elena did everything to protect her family the best she could. Firstly, she tried to solve the phones' matter. Secondly, because of few incidents when paparazzi got definitely too close to their estate, two times even getting through the gates and filming their private life through the windows of their house, she immediately signed up a contract with the security agency. This way two patrols controlled the vicinity of their estate day and night, driving the paparazzi away and keeping them on safe distance. Unfortunately, soon even that turned out to be insufficient, because paparazzi tried to film the Drakes from the seaside.

Along with those three days, Nate passed another three sleepless nights. He was squirming restlessly on his side of the bed until dawn, haunted by his fears. Every time he noticed that Elena was awaking, he'd turn on his side and pretend he was deeply asleep. He was trying to control his emotions, trying to cope with this problem by himself. He didn't need any more comforting, he didn't want to talk about it, too. He felt like a prisoner in his own house, embattled like a wounded animal by a pack of hounds.

Each day he was asleep with first rays of sunlight only and slept until noon, but it was restless and dreamless sleep; after awakening he felt even more stressed and exhausted than in the evening. He tried his best to stay in good spirit, but it was hard, especially after his talk with Elena in their study the other day. He tried to drive thoughts about it away, but they'd come back again and again. It wouldn't let him go.

One day Sam called.

Actually Nate wouldn't answer the call if Elena hadn't accidentally checked the screen of the muted phone. After two weeks of struggle for gold in the deep jungle of South Africa Sam was on his way to Mexico and visited his ex-associates - Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross. There he learned about the 'Drake-gate'. He actually found it ridiculous and started making fun of his _famous_ brother on the phone ('Y'know, little brother, you could at least put on your better clothes for this shooting session on your beach! A little fanservice wouldn't hurt anybody!'), but when Nate's only reaction at his jokes was silence, Sam understood that the situation is probably more serious than he originally thought.

"I'm sorry, Nathan," Sam said awkwardly, breaking the heavy silence between them. "I didn't mean to…"

"It's all right," Nate interrupted him, feeling a little exasperated. He knew that his skittish older brother hadn't the slightest idea about his state of mood and wasn't eager to explain it to him now (never). He wasn't sure if he'd understand.

"I guess it's not easy for you… Maybe…," Sam started again after a short pause. "Maybe you'd like me to drop by?"

"I don't think it's a good idea right now," Nate replied hesitantly, already trying to imagine Sam's photos appearing in the gossipy service on the Internet. "You'd attract great attention. I don't want you involved."

"Yup, I got it," Sam sighed after an instant. "But Nathan, if I could be of any help…"

"I'm fine," Nate lied. "Really. I can handle myself."

"Okay, okay…" Sam replied quickly, backing out.

There was another, short moment of silence between the brothers.

"How is Sully?" Nate finally asked with concern. "Seen him recently?"

Sam made a sigh on the other end of the line. "No, I plan to drop by at his place in two days," Sam said. "I'm sure he's doing fine. He's an old but tough guy. You should call him by yourself."

Nate bit his lip. Calling Sully meant explaining the whole news fuss, then listening to his consolation, and right now Nate now felt almost allergic to these activities. But there was more: Nate was feeling uneasy about calling Sully. He was feeling sense of guilt. It was nearly two months and he didn't call him at all.

He forgot.

"Yeah, I will," Nate answered. He's got enough of this conversation. "Listen, Sam, I gotta go…"

"Yeah. Say hi to Elena and Cassie from me. And take care, little brother."

"You too," Nate replied and hanged up.

On the fourth day the atmosphere in the house was like a huge powder keg - ready to explode in any time.

The trio were sitting in their living room, each of them occupied with their own stuff. Elena was continuously typing something on her laptop, while Cassie and Nate were browsing through the books she bought in Paris. There were all sorts of books: lexicons, dictionaries of ancient languages and, most of all, interesting publications about past civilizations. There was even a book about ancient Mesopotamia, so Nate focused on that one first. Yet, he had serious problems with concentration.

Eventually, he looked up and took a peek through the half-opened window. Another beautiful day was passing by while he was stuck in the house. Recently he couldn't even peacefully cross his own beach to the studio building without noticing paparazzi's photoflash lamps in the distance. That was getting unbearably annoying.

He slumped against the back of his seat with a sigh, resting the book on his lap and glanced at his girls. They were both concentrated on their stuff and didn't look at him. But he had enough of this.

"I'm going downtown," he unexpectedly declared.

Both Elena and Cassie looked up at him, their eyes widened. "What?" they asked simultaneously.

Nate shrugged. "I'm going downtown. I'll buy myself a doughnut and drink coffee, like a normal and free citizen. Then maybe I'd go for a short walk. Feel free to join me."

Elena blinked and slowly closed her laptop. "Nate," she started, scooting closer to him. "This is insane. They're everywhere! They'll hunt you down the moment you'll pass our fence…"

"If I were you, I actually wouldn't call it a good idea either, Dad," Cassie added.

"I don't know about you, but I'm done hiding in this nuthouse and pretending I don't exist," Nate snapped back and threw his book on the coffee table. "It's been already four days!"

"Nate, please," Elena begged, grabbing him by his arm. "You really shouldn't… Do you want the situation from the airport to repeat itself-"

"I don't care," he replied angrily and got up on his feet.

"Nate, don't!" Elena rose her voice.

"Oh come on, I'll go either with or without your consent," Nate declared. "Are you girls going, or not?"

Of course Cassie immediately threw her own book aside and got up. "I'll go with you! Another day locked here and I'll go crazy..."

"No, Cassie. You're not going anywhere," Elena interrupted her firmly, then gave Nate a look. " _I'll go_ with you."

"No!" Cassie groaned. "No way! You're not gonna leave me here!"

"Don't be a baby," Elena snapped back and rose from her seat. "You've already taken part in one pursuit of the journalists, I don't need you getting in trouble anymore while you're here."

Cassie looked up at Nate with a silent plea in her brown eyes, but Nate just shrugged. Seeing this, Cassie made a deep breath. "God, how I hate this place!" she cried and walked briskly towards her room and slammed the door behind her. Surprised Vicky went after her and lied down at the entrance to her room like a guardian.

"You're happy now?" Elena furrowed her eyebrows at Nate and walked out of the living room towards their bedroom to get dressed.

"I should ask you this question!" Nate grumped after her, entering the bedroom and observing Elena as she was dressing up. "She's already an adult! If she wants to go, let her be. I don't get you sometimes…"

Elena turned furiously on her heel to face him. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but I'm only trying to protect her," she snapped back, pointing a finger on Nate, then stepped closer to him. "She might be an adult, but we are still her parents. And we shouldn't have let the encounter at the airport happen - never!"

Nate froze, eyeing her for an instant, then furrowed his eyebrows. "So you're saying now that I don't care about her?" he asked angrily under his breath.

Elena frowned at him, confounded. "No!" she gasped. "I didn't say that-"

"But you thought it," he whispered with a firm voice, trying to ignore the quickening of his pulse. His mouth went dry.

Elena was looking at him, visibly shocked. "No!" she whispered back after an instant in a broken voice. Her chocolate eyes were searching his face, desperately trying to find any trace that'd make her sure that what he's saying to her is not serious. "What is wrong with you?"

He blinked. Not that again. "Never mind," he replied quickly, then took a deep breath and looked away from her, like nothing happened. "It's okay."

"It's not 'okay'…" Elena continued and grabbed his arm. She was hearing alarming bells ringing in her ears. "It's been a week and nothing is 'okay' anymore, Nate!"

He fixed his eyesight on some invisible object on the wall. Elena waited for a minute, then tightened her fingers around his arm to get his attention. "Nate," she gasped. "You're not telling me everything, do you?"

Nate finally looked at her. Her eyes were full of disquiet and uncertainty. He knew that look, though he didn't see it for so long…

He didn't say anything in return.

"Tell me what's bothering you," Elena insisted eventually with a trembling voice. "Talk to me, Nate..."

He wouldn't. Or he couldn't. But at that moment it wouldn't make any difference.

"Leave it. Please," Nate insisted, trying to sound as calm as possible, then pulled her hand off his arm and squeezed it gently with his own. "It doesn't matter. C'mon, let's try to pass the rest of this afternoon in a nicest possible way. Or I'll go crazy."

* * *

Everyone's on the edge now. It wouldn't be easy to control emotions anymore.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9 - Another Interrupted Date**

"Don't you think that we should consider this… as a date?"

Hearing this, Nate glanced at Elena from above his cup and chuckled, then sipped his coffee with no rush and reached for the doughnut. "Really?" he asked, faking a surprise. It certainly wasn't that they were lacking the romantic. "Well, surely it's the first date ever that we happened upon while running away from paparazzis-psychopaths camping all around our house," he teased her, then listened to her cheerful laughter.

"Frankly speaking…" Elena started after a second, "we never had that 'first date thing'. I mean, we just started being together, didn't we?"

Nate thought for a second, chewing his doughnut. "I can't agree with you. What about that time in Lima, after finding the El Dorado treasure? When we went to that fancy bar in the garden next to our hotel, over the ocean?"

Elena chuckled at the memory and waved her hand. "Oh, I don't count that as a date."

"Why? I thought it was very romantic!"

"It was very romantic," Elena nodded and sipped her coffee with a mischievous grin, "until we asked for a bill and you realized that all money that you had in your pocket was the ancient Spanish currency from the treasure, with whom you couldn't pay in modern world…"

"Oh come on, it couldn't be so," Nate scoffed and leaned back in his chair, scratching his head. "I surely must have liquidated some of that gold right after our arrival, together with Sully…"

"…you did, but only two days after that," Elena interrupted him, "because it was time to pay for the hotel. Until then we practically slept on that gold! So, I don't count that evening as a date, because the honor of funding the dinner unexpectedly fell on me… although it was you, Nathan Drake, who had come up with the invitation."

"No way!" Nate laughed and shook his head. "Absolutely no!"

"Absolutely so!" Elena laughed back triumphally. "Wanna see that bill, from that evening? I still have it in my desk, along with the paragon from my credit card. I've proof! We were lucky that I had any money left after all…"

"That's an enormous mystification!" Nate snorted and crossed his arms on his chest, shaking his head. "By the way, I never thought I married such a traditionalist."

Elena scoffed. "It's not the matter of being a traditionalist, honey. It's the matter of being a gentleman…"

"I never was that kind of type," Nate interrupted, then rested his chin on his hand and gazed at Elena with a mischievous grin. "By the way, remind me, honey: didn't that _extremely_ unpolite behavior of mine actually work on you that night?"

He gave her a wink. Elena leaned her elbows on the table and returned the look, smiling involuntarily at the memory of their first night. "As prosaically as it sounds… it actually did, cowboy."

They both chuckled, exchanging pleasant looks. They were sitting inside the tiny café at the corner of the street. It was one of those cute and cozy places in their hometown that they never had the occasion to visit while they were travelling and working throughout the whole world - even though they were passing around it every time while heading to the D&F Fortunes office. Now it seemed like a perfect place to relax and a hideout after a thrilling flight from the journalists that were occupying the surroundings of their house. This time it was Nate's turn to drive and he was still shocked that he'd made it out without killing anybody with his car. But certainly reaching that café, eating a sweet doughnut and drinking coffee with his pretty wife was well worth the effort they made to reach this place.

Elena toyed with a wedding ring on her finger for a couple of minutes while eyeing Nate eating his doughnut. "I'm glad to see you relaxed, at least a bit," she sent him a wide and heartfelt smile. "A very rare view lately."

Nate smiled back to her and started swinging the rest of the coffee on the bottom of his cup. "Yeah. Y'know, desperate times and so on…"

"Desperate times…" Elena leaned across the table, giving Nate a concerned look. "Could we now talk frankly, hon?"

Nate shrugged. "Yeah, sure," he said quietly. He knew what subject she was about to bring up and - like always - he didn't have the slightest need to talk about it. "Aren't we always talking frankly?"

Elena disregarded this question. "Nate, I've known you for over 25 years. I've been your wife for the huge part of that time too. That's surely enough time to learn to guess when you're hiding something from me."

Nate looked away from her and leaned back in his chair, then made a loud sigh. "'Lena I seriously have no idea what you're talking about. I don't-"

"Nate, stop reciting the same answer over and over again," Elena interrupted him. "I've waited patiently a couple days for you to come to me and tell me by yourself, but all that you're doing is denying and stalling me. I know that you're still not sleeping at night. I know that something is tormenting you, makes you too overstressed with the whole situation with the press, but I am unable to help you when I don't know what it is…"

"I don't need any help," Nate repeated slowly. "Everything is fine."

Elena scoffed, letting her hands fall down her sides with disbelief. "No, it's not!"

"I'm just stressed out with those freaks outside our house, that's all! Just like you and Cassie," Nate replied, then frowned at her with a serious gaze. "Don't you trust me?"

"You know that I do. It's just… You promised to always come to me, so we could deal with the problem together… to treat me as your confidant... and I have a feeling that you're not doing so."

Hearing this and noticing the conflict in his wife's words Nate felt an unexpected desire to scoff, but he thought better of it and looked away from Elena again. "Believe me," he started after a short pause, "I'm okay, it's just the normal stress. We're like sitting ducks in our house, that's why."

Elena scoffed, but this time differently. More nervously. Shortly. Constrainedly. Nate knew she wasn't satisfied with that answer. Then she made something that was constantly irritating him ever since they both arrived in that café - for maybe the hundredth time she looked around them with caution, brushing edgily a strand of hair behind her ear. She's been checking whether they were being watched by somebody…

Nate made a deep sigh, then followed after her sight around the interior of the café, surveying other people sitting there - relaxing, enjoying their time and today's beautiful, sunny afternoon. Normal people, chatting, flirting, grumping, gossiping. Nate leaned back in his chair. He envied them. He didn't feel relaxed anymore.

"What?" he suddenly asked his wife harshly and ostentatiously, trying to show the impatience and irritation in his voice. It wasn't hard - he truly felt this way.

Elena looked up at him with an innocent look in her eyes. "What 'what'?"

"What's wrong with you?" he asked angrily.

Elena raised her eyebrow. "I don't get it?"

"Since we've come here you're constantly staring around like a guard dog," Nate explained. "Can't you lay back even for a half an hour? Act normally? We're not wanted by the police yet."

Elena scoffed and sipped the rest of her coffee. "Well, thank you for emphasizing the word 'yet'. This makes a difference in our situation. I could overlook this little fact."

"You're not making things better, 'Lena," Nate lowered his voice.

"No, you're the one who's not making things better, Nate," Elena snapped back, then placed her cup on the table with one, careless move. "You're playing with me! You're not honest with me!"

"God, what the hell do you want to hear from me?" Nate whispered angrily and spread his hands. "What answer would be satisfactory for you? Maybe you want me to admit that I'm losing my mind over a band of assholes that have no life of their own and prey on somebody else's misery?! After everything that I came through in my life?! Is that what you want to hear from me?"

"If that's true, then yes!" Elena whispered back without hesitation, leaning closer to him. Her eyes were full of exasperation. "I always expected from you nothing but the truth! How comes that after so many years…" Elena paused, then made a deep sigh, as if she was hesitating whether to end the sentence, "…you're still treating me like someone before who you have to prove yourself?"

Nate opened his mouth, but his words simply didn't come out. He stared into Elena's brown eyes, that were now studying his every movement, waiting for him to answer. For a mere second he felt the silent urge to tell her. Tell her everything. Get out of his protecting shield he started building around himself again…

Unexpectedly something that just appeared behind Elena's back caught his attention.

"Oh shit," he gasped. Seeing his face Elena turned her head and noticed a pack of camera lens pointed directly at them through the café's windows. All of them started flashing the moment Elena and Nate both faced them, illuminating the whole interior of the café and uncovering them before all other clients. "We've got company."

"Then I guess that's the end of the date," Elena murmured and started getting up and quickly gathering her belongings from the table. The rest of the café clients suddenly warmed up at the sight of the flashing lights and started pointing their fingers at the Drakes and filming the situation with their smartphones. A couple of them even got up from their seats and just stared at them.

"So now where," Nate arched his eyebrow as he got on feet and chewed the very last piece of his doughnut. "Your place or mine?"

Elena scoffed at the question and flung her shoulder bag over her head. "Anywhere," she snapped and pushed Nate away from the table towards the exit. It was then when she suddenly noticed the waitress out of the corner of her eye and remembered something fairly important. "Nate, wait, and the bill…?"

Nathan made a surprised face in reply as if he didn't realize until now that his stay at the café wasn't actually free of charge. Second later he quickly spotted all his pockets with his hands and looked up on his wife with a goofy grin. "Crap, I forgot my wallet… would you-"

Elena rolled her eyes with a loud and exasperated sigh, then hurriedly drew out some cash from her wallet (probably far too much than it was necessary), threw it on the table and rushed up to Nate, who's been already standing at the exit door, ready for a getaway to their car.

The moment later they got welcomed by the loud crowd of journalists and the sea of flashes blinded them for a mere second. It was enough for the crowd to gather closely around them, nearly jamming them back into the inside of the café. They were under the assault of various questions, asked by several people at the same time, so it was impossible to understand a single word in this turmoil. Elena instinctively put on her sunglasses and grasped Nate's hand. She looked around. She could notice journalists and paparazzis from nearly every TV station or newspaper - unfortunately even these, that originally promised her to leave the topic…

"Sorry guys, no comments, 'scuse me," Nate tried to outshout the crowd and push forward, when another two paparazzis blinded him with their cameras shooting right at his face. Nate felt the nervous grip of Elena's hand and the touch of her hand on his shoulder blades. He moved another several steps forward with his arm extended in from of him, like if he was walking in the darkness, trying to make his way using little spaces between people and repeating the same line over and over again.

Soon the crowd narrowed around him and he started shoving people away from him in order to make space for them to walk even a single step forward. He cursed himself in thoughts for coming with an idea of going to town and, above all, being this foolish to park their car so far away from the café. For the first time in his life he felt claustrophobic. He had a feeling that those flashlights around him and the microphones that were nearly sticking into his face drained oxygen from the air around him. He felt the pressure in his throat. All his conscience was reduced to the primal state, he was fulfilled with the will of getting out there as fast as possible. Initially he was getting through the crowd with his head held high, firmly, maybe even with a little cocky grin on his face. He tried to play it cool, as he always did. Now he just ducked his head and didn't look up at the cameras, going deaf on the rain of questions. He was slowly moving forward while shoving microphones away from his face and grasping tightly Elena's hand behind him, like if she was about to get lost in this mayhem by herself. He quickly stopped being polite and subtle, he stopped excusing himself. He was struggling. And he truly and fully hated those people around him.

It seemed like an eternity when they finally reached their car. When they got there, Nate braced himself with one hand on the car's bonnet and pulled Elena to himself.

"Go," he said a bit too loud to her ear, making sure she heard him in this racket. Then he shoved two paparazzies away with his body, and pushed Elena forward, towards the passenger's door at the front seat. Elena leaped at the opportunity when there were only few people around her and jumped at the doors. At that moment the crowd split up and a part of it ran after Elena to the right side of the car, while Nate squeezed through the second group of people to the driver's seat and opened the door.

When Nate was just about to slip into the car and drive the hell away from that pack of psychos… things got out of control.

It started when unexpectedly, among the crowd's turmoil, Nate heard his wife's pained cry. He looked into the inside of the car and it took him a split second to realize what was happening - Elena's right foot got stuck in the car door while the people outside the vehicle were still pushing against the door, trying to film Elena's face as closely as possible. They were hurting her.

Nate didn't hear the crowd anymore. He didn't hear nothing but the ringing in his ears and Elena's voice. She was cursing at them, yelling angrily and banging at the doorframe with her fists, trying to push it away, but the crowd outside the car was too strong.

"Nate-"

He screamed something, though he didn't hear himself. He aggressively jostled paparazzis away from him. They lost their balances and nearly fell on the others behind them, but Nate didn't care about them. His pulse quickened and his heart was racing. All the helplessness and powerlessness that he felt before vanished in an instant. In a few quick steps he made his way to the other side of the car, unceremoniously beating journalists from his way with his elbows and knees. He reached out and gripped the metal doorframe of the front door with his hand, then pulled it strongly, but it wouldn't move enough. He looked up at the pack of paparazzis still crowding around the door and pushing forward like some kind of formless maze, filling every free space nearby the car.

"You assholes, get away from her!"

* * *

This is part one of the original single, longer chapter. It simply got too long.

What did Nathan do to the paparazzies? Expect the update soon!


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10 - Home, sweet home**

Cassie was sitting on the kitchen counter, patting Vicky's head with her foot and grasping a tablet in her hands. It was starting getting late and her parents apparently were having a good time downtown. Unlike her. During that afternoon and part of the evening Cassie read another book, talked to Joe by the phone and now she was entertaining herself by watching silly videos online.

Suddenly she noticed something urgent hitting the news on her RSS and she loaded the embedded video. It was titled: "Urgent: Nathan Drake sets upon the working journalists". She fast-forwarded its first part, ignoring some journalist's too-emotional comment on the event and then she noticed nobody else but her own father. He was running through the crowd of paparazzies and random onlookers gathered tightly on the street around their car. He reached the right side of the vehicle and shouted something indistinct towards them. Then, with all his strength, he jostled away two men that were standing in front of the passenger door. It didn't do much: they didn't move backward away enough, because they were blocked by the others standing behind them. After a second of surprise some of them started spreading their arms and shouting something in Nathan's direction. There could be seen some kind of aggression in their movements now. Nathan turned away from them and bracing himself against the car, he crack-opened the door from the passenger's side. Cassie could notice her mother's face through the window. Nathan was saying something to Elena and she nodded.

Second later, the crowd tightened around them again, nearly crushing Nathan against the car side. He braced on his arms on the car and tried to close the door, but all he could do was to stand there, with his back to the crowd. Suddenly Cassie noticed, that one of the paparazzies - a young one, with red hair under a baseball cap - got pushed forward by the crowd behind him so hard, that he literally jabbed her father in his ribs with the huge camera. It had to be enough. In a split second, Nathan turned on his heel, wrath burning in his bright eyes. In a few quick moves, he jostled a few journalists away, then whipped the camera off the redhead paparazzi's hands and threw it on the ground with great force, breaking it into tiny pieces.

"Oh God," Cassie gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. She could notice her mother seated in the car, doing exactly the same gesture at the sight.

The paparazzies' voices on the video ceased immediately and Cassie saw everybody looking up at Nathan, shocked. He was still standing too close to the redhead paparazzi, with the same look of anger in his eyes, as if he was about to hit him. But he didn't. Instead, he looked around one last time and walked towards the driver's seat. This time, paparazzies shoved up in silence, allowing him to walk through, but they didn't stop filming and taking photos. Some of them showed rude gestures towards her father, but didn't say or shout anything.

Nathan got into the car, then started blowing his horn on the journalists and drove with full speed down the street. The video focused on their vehicle vanishing in the distance and then there was a cut and on the screen appeared the redhead paparazzi. Apparently it took an instant for him to understand what actually happened and when he did, he fell on his knees and started whimpering over the destroyed camera.

"Holy… shit," Cassie gasped loudly, as the video ended. She rested her hands with the tablet on her knees, completely shocked. Then she looked down at Vicky, that was staring at her with concerned eyes. "This is bad," Cassie said and the doggy just whined in reply.

A second after Cassie heard the sound of the approaching car engine. She glanced through the kitchen window and confirmed her suspicions. The heroes of the day were finally back. She jumped off the counter and quickly walked to the front door, wanting to greet them and ask about what she just saw. Vicky got on her feet as well and followed Cassie at a lazy pace.

The moment Cassie opened the outside door, she heard her parents' voices from the parking lot. Loud and raised. Full of anger.

She froze on their porch, listening quietly. Vicky passed her and started walking down the stairs but then she noticed that her lady wasn't following her - to what she reacted with a surprised whimper. But Cassie ignored her and just stood there, listening to the voices from the parking lot.

"-could play it out differently! Maybe without attacking them in front of the whole country's TV viewers?!"

"'Attacking'?! I was the one who was attacking?! Then what would you call that what they were doing? 'Gentle patting on my back and ribs' that accidentally turned into crunching me against the fucking car side?!"

"They're paparazzies, they need to keep their fingers on the heartbeat! That's their job, Nate!"

"Oh, sure! That explains everything! 'Scuse me then, I should've let them crush your leg!"

"Don't you understand? It wouldn't have happened if you wouldn't have made that fabulously stupid decision to go to town just like that, before patiently waiting for the things to cool down by themselves!"

That was enough for Cassie to understand how bad things were between her parents. It was evidently worse than it has ever been in the last months, maybe years. Cassie gasped loudly and turned on her feet, then ran to her room and locked the door, truly and fully unwilling to be a witness to this fight.

The second later the main doors opened again and Nathan entered the house, then walked towards the kitchen, Elena following him.

"They just took advantage of the opportunity that you gave them!" Elena called after Nate when she shut the door behind her. "I can't believe I agreed on this! That was incredibly stupid of you!"

"Oh, so sorry to disappoint you, darling!" Nate snapped back ironically while opening the fridge and getting himself a bottle of beer. He turned on his heel and faced Elena again, bracing himself against the counter. "What would satisfy you? Maybe you'll put bars in the windows tomorrow? Install additional locks in the door? Hire the pack of guards? Or, maybe, wait, wait," he continued, raising his hand with the beer in the air, "I think it's not necessary anymore - we already live like prisoners here!"

"Jesus, Nate, stop being this impatient!" Elena groaned, rolling her eyes. "You asked me if I believed you, but you don't believe _me_! I told you, they'll eventually stop! The topic will vanish!" She made a gesture, spreading her arms widely. "Just like that! Everything will return to normal! All you have to do - or rather, all you _had_ to do - was to keep quiet for a couple of goddamn days!"

Nate sipped his beer, then frowned at Elena and scoffed. "And that's it? Is that all you have to offer? Sit and wait, that's your brilliant strategy against these suckers?"

Elena let her arms fall to her sides and gasped. "Yes, it is! Do you know some other options?"

" _Any_ other option seems better than one that requires being stuck in the house for almost a week now," Nate blurted out. "We should be working like always, blow these idiots off somehow, but certainly we should not run away and lock ourselves up like in a shelter-"

"I'm doing this to protect you, asshole!" Elena yelled at Nate, apparently losing her patience. "I'm trying to protect Cassie! And if that requires locking ourselves up in this house for some time, then it's fine-"

"It's not fine with me!" Nate yelled back, putting his bottle sharply on the counter. The half-empty bottle made a loud thud hitting the furniture. "I'm not going to run away like a coward anymore!"

"Oh, how's that?" Elena asked him sarcastically after a moment of uneasy silence. "You were running away all your life… Every moment when complications were piling up. That was your way of solving problems! You were running away _from me_ , countless times!" She emphasized those words and made a step forward, not taking her eyes off her husband. "And now, in this precise situation, you have some nerve telling me that it's below your dignity to run?"

Nate scoffed dismissively, then took his beer off the counter and walked past Elena without a word. Elena frowned at him with wide eyes. "Nate!" she called after him, then rushed up to him and grasped him by his right arm. "Nate, stay!"

"Oh," he stopped obediently and glanced at Elena's hand on his arm, then at her. He had the same ironic and angry look in his eyes, raising his eyebrow. "I see you're improving in incarcerating, do you?"

Elena's eyes went wide at those words and she froze, shocked by her husband's unexpected and cold-hearted remark. Then she let go of his arm and the look she gave him made Nate nearly sure that she's about to hit him in his face. But she didn't; she just glanced at him, half-angry, half-shocked, searching his face. He resisted her look, looking down on her and nearly feeling the skin on his arm burning at the spot of her last touch, as if she had touched him with burning iron.

"What's wrong?" Elena asked quietly and slowly, her voice trembling. "What the hell is wrong with you, Nate? Why are you doing this?"

Nate swallowed, then made a deep breath, looking down at her. "And you?"

Elena blinked, then shrugged, showing her surprise and misunderstanding of what was he saying.

"Are you still on my side?" he clarified.

"Nate," Elena gasped after a second, rubbing her cheeks and temples with the palms of her hands. "How… just _how_ can you have any doubts…?"

Before Nate could open his mouth, Elena's phone vibrated in her jeans pocket. They both looked at the sound's direction, then Elena pulled out her phone, glanced at the screen and showed it to Nate.

"Answer it," Nate stated when he read the name on the screen, then made a step back and plopped down in an armchair in the corner of the room. It was their manager. At least they were over their fight for some time, giving them time to cool off a bit. Before they both say too much.

Elena made a deep sigh, then answered the call, turning back to Nate and walking into the kitchen again. Nate turned his head and dumbly stared at the wide map hanging on the wall next to his armchair, above the chest of drawers. It was a very old map, hand-painted and crafted, yet to its authenticity Nate always had several doubts. Elena found it on some antiques fair during one of their first trips to Europe. Although it had more a decorative and historical function than cartographic, it showed the contours of the Africa continent and the Middle East and Asia as it was seen by the XIV-century geographers. Africa was far smaller than it was in reality, comparing to Eurasia.

He sipped his beer and watched the map, searching for the region of Mesopotamia. He did it without any specific reason - out of sheer curiosity. He easily found two biggest rivers of the region - Tigre and Euphrates, then started enumerating ancient Mesopotamian cities in his thoughts.

"What?" he suddenly heard Elena's surprised gasp and looked up at her. She was clenching her phone to her ear, her eyes widened. She gazed at Nate for a second, but didn't say or show anything. "Where?" she asked again to the receiver, then rushed through the corridor to their bedroom without saying a word to her husband.

Nate didn't feel like following her. He sipped the rest of his beer and placed the empty bottle on the chest of drawers, looking up at the map again. He started wondering on which city he was before he was interrupted - was it Uruk, Nippur or Kisch? He decided to start again, from the Persian Gulf towards the north. Soon he got past the region in which these two biggest rivers were closing up. He took a moment to visualize the beauty and mystery of this place in his imagination. The cradle of mankind. One of the most important parts of the ancient Fertile Crescent. It was inhabited already during the Paleolithic Age, then ruled by several Mesopotamian dynasties, Persians, Romans… It was always a wealthy and progressive region, so the successors continued and developed the cultural heritage they found there.

He searched the map, trying to find another important cities of the region, when something caught his attention. His eyes wandered further up north, along the riverbed of Euphrates, passing the Habbaniyah Lake. Another ancient city was located there - Sippar, then Euphrates was turning left, towards west, and then again towards north. There was an area surrounded by over three big lakes - it had to be very fertile ground, and that means that people had to live there, working the land on this fertile soil. Then Nate's eyes wondered east. Right on the other side of the valley, on the western bank of Tigris, lied an ancient city of Assur, capital of the Assyrian Empire, that was ruling this region after the dynasty of Ur and the Akkadians. One of the biggest Mesopotamian cities.

Nate looked closely at the little point on the map that was symbolizing the location of the city. It's position seemed to him somehow interesting. The city was built on the western bank of Tigris, on a triangular headland, where the river presented a natural barrier from the eastern side only. It meant that in order to fully protect the city there had to be built a chain of defensive walls from the western side, where there was no natural barriers. Nate narrowed his eyes. It was strange. Why did they chose the western bank of Tigris and not the eastern one? During their times the Assyrians had to face the possible attacks of tribes living mainly in the west and on the Sinai Penisula. So it seemed natural, that the city should be rather built on the eastern bank of Tigris. Waters of the river, additionally straightened by the solid walls on the land could have represent far better barrier against enemies that would try to reach Assur. Building a city on the western bank of the river seemed a bit of nonsense…

…unless they had some backup on the west… Like another city, strong enough to counter the attack from the western side…

Nate frowned at the both banks of Euphrates and then an illumination hit him so hard that he gasped loudly.

"Oh crap."

He got on his feet swiftly and was about to leave the house when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Elena in their bedroom at the end of the corridor. She wasn't talking by the phone anymore, instead she was sitting on his side of the bed, grasping a mobile in her hands and staring at the floor. She had on opened laptop lying next to her on the bed, its monitor was illuminating the profile of her face. Although they were freshly after the fight, Nate somehow felt that he should approach her. Not without any difficult he broke out of his Mesopotamian thoughts and walked over to their bedroom.

"Hey," he started stiffy, leaning against the doorframe and putting his hands into his pockets. "Everything's fine?"

Elena looked up at him and, god, he knew that look of her. The skin on her face went pale and her brown eyes went glassy and full of tears, that seemed ready to fall down her cheeks anytime.

"Honey," Nate gasped, completely startled, then slowly approached her and sat next to her on the bed. He patted her thigh gently, to what Elena reacted by swallowing back her tear. "What happened?"

Elena ducked her head again and clenched her fingers around her cellphone so hard, that Nate was sure that she's enough strength to crush it into tiny pieces. He waited patiently for her to say anything, yet every single nerve in him screamed to run away in order to not know another shit that just happened in their life.

"Our sponsors…" Elena murmured after a minute. She was speaking slowly, like if she was strongly restraining herself from bursting into tears. "They're withdrawing their support. All of them… Right now."

Nate blinked. Elena was the one to control all the 'boring' matters concerning the economic side of their company, including the matter of sponsorship of their numerous expeditions. In reality, the expeditions were very expensive and the gold from Libertalia was long gone. Of course, the Drakes were also earning money thanks to TV programs, interviews or publicity, sometimes got some international funds, plus they avoided most costs because of having their own equipment. But it wasn't enough to capitalize new expedition each month or so. They had to pay for the permits (these were nearly never free of charge), pay their employees (including accountants), the fuel for their barge, harbor charges, insurance, and so on. In order to fulfill their dreams of adventurous life, they had to rely on sponsors, which included labelling their jackets with proper logotypes, taking part in commercials or sponsored interviews. In return, they were given a huge amount of cash to realize every new project they were deciding on. This was how it worked during the years.

Unlike illegal, legal work wasn't cheap at all.

"What?" Nate asked, dumbfounded.

Elena looked up at him, anger building again in her eyes. "What you've heard," she murmured coldly. "They're withdrawing from the D&F Fortunes."

Nate scoffed. "I don't understand… I mean… they're withdrawing because of that event with breaking the camera?"

"No," Elena shook her head sadly, then passed him her laptop. "Because of _this_."

Nate looked up at the device's screen and froze at the sight.

It was an article on _The Morning News_ website with a photo attached. He quickly recognized the streets of that Nepal city, where he was searching for the right temple together with Chloe. Where he met Elena the second time. The photo showed the ruined part of the Old Town, street was full of debris and human corpses (properly blurred for audience) - among them Nate could recognize both the Lazarevic's soldiers and the partisans.

Then his pulse quickened as he noticed himself, running between the destroyed buildings. His face, his outfit were perfectly visible, although he was on the second or rather the third plan of the photo. Caught in action, looking for a right temple, struggling to survive… with the AK-47 in both hands. And the inscription above the photo said: _Nathan Drake mysterious involvement in Nepal Civil War._

"Shit," Nate gasped, then quickly scrolled down to see the author's name and wasn't much surprised to discover that it was Chris Compi's handiwork. "Son of a bitch… Where the hell did he got it…?"

Elena nodded sadly and bit her lip, but didn't say anything.

"Ain't we gonna do something about this either?" Nate asked, exasperated.

"Nate," Elena shook her head then bowed forward and braced her elbows on her knees. "What do you want do? This picture made them think that you've been involved in this war, no matter on which side, that you took active part in street fights… that you…"

"We both know that it's not true, 'Lena," Nate interrupted her quickly, before she could finish the sentence. "We should tell them the truth about this."

"The truth?" Elena raised her eyes on Nate. "Well, go on, tell them truth. Tell them that you went after the tracks of Marco Polo to Borneo, where you found the magical ritual dagger. Then you came to Nepal, where you were trying to locate the hidden temple that would give you a clue on a lead to the forgotten city called Shamballa, hidden somewhere deep in the Himalayas and guarded by yeti-like guardians… During that whole time you was hunted by Lazarevic's soldiers as he wanted to get to Shambala too… There's only one truth, Nate. And it sounds: nobody's gonna believe you."

Nate scoffed. He was surveying the photo, thinking of any other option, but he couldn't find any - apart from that one to erase the gun in a graphic program and claim that the one in the press was falsified. But it seemed an obvious frame.

"This," Elena said sadly as she gazed at the mobile in her hand, "probably ends our treasure hunting with D&F Fortunes... For some time, at very least."

Nate didn't answer anything, although he knew she was right. He felt helpless and furious about the situation. He couldn't believe that during one single afternoon their life changed beyond recognition. If there was only a way to undo things…

They were sitting together on the bed in complete silence for several minutes. None of them was the despairing type and they kept it cool. They didn't whine over their situation or ask useless questions like 'o my god, what should we do now?'. But this time it was harder than usual and constant trying to keep calm took their breath away. They just sat there, without touching each other, like if they were separated by an invisible wall. Nate made a deep breath and looked down at Elena, but she didn't look up at him in return, still grasping her mobile in both hands. He didn't know what to say, his usual ability to tell smart-ass remarks vanished away. There was nothing to say, really.

Finally he slammed the laptop shut, then got on his feet, ready to leave the room.

"Nate," Elena called after him, and he stopped, gazing at her. "We have to be aware that soon you might be interviewed by the cops, if they assume that you could be a war criminal. You should better think of some kind of explanation if that happens."

"Yeah, I will," Nate murmured. "And now I think that Lazarevic is lucky to be dead."

Elena chose to not react to the amount of stupidity included in this simple sentence and let him walk away without a single word. When Nate left the bedroom she collapsed on her back on their bed and covered her eyes with both hands. She breathed loudly, trying to pull herself together and not cry. She had enough of today's events as well. Everything, their whole life, was falling apart and she couldn't think of anything to pick the situation up.

She couldn't help when a single tear went down her cheek. She also didn't notice when Nate slipped away from their house through the main door and walked towards their beach studio, vanishing in the darkness of the evening.

* * *

I'm very curious of what do you think about the course of story. I think it's getting darker, but I can't help it. Nathan and Elena are slowly drifting apart - is there any possible way to stop the process?

Also, I had a lot of thinking to make it sound realistic. I mean, really - in real life money doesn't grow on trees, and Nathan and Elena had a limited amount of gold taken from Libertalia. They had to spend it during those nearly 20 years. So I thought of a sponsorship as an optimal way of getting funds for expeditions.

P.S. Originally there was much more of cursing, but I decided to erase some of them - for the rating's sake :) They don't swear much in games either.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11 - The Centrifugal Force**

The next morning Elena woke up to find out that Nate's side of the bed was cold and intact.

She sat on the mattress, looking around, but there was no trace of her husband. Cool breeze was breaking into the room through the half-opened windows and the sun was still rising on the sky behind the trees. The house was quiet and the only sounds that she heard were the birds' singing from the outside. Elena looked down on herself to discover that she was still dressed in her yesterday's clothes. She remembered that after hearing the bad news she just curled on her side of the bed under the sheets and fell deeply asleep - constantly repeating to herself, that she'll deal with all this shit tomorrow. But 'tomorrow' came and she still didn't have any idea on how to improve their desperate situation. Additionally, she lost track of her own husband. She had that awful feeling of wasted time.

"C'mon, get a hold of yourself, Fisher," she murmured to herself, rubbing her eyes. _Enough of this pity-party_. She got on her feet and went to the bathroom.

Fifteen minutes later, after a refreshing shower, she dressed up in fresh clothes, walked out of the bedroom and checked on the house, but Nate was nowhere to be found. Elena fed the impatient Vicky, then walked slowly towards Cassie's room, quietly crack-opened the door and peeked in. The room was stuffy, slowly filling up with the warm light of a rising sun. Her daughter was still asleep, lying on her stomach and holding one of the biggest pillows to her right cheek. Her golden hair was disheveled and she almost pushed the whole duvet off the bed. She was so much like Nate when she was asleep…

Elena couldn't help but smile to herself. She truly loved being a mother. She was so proud of her daughter, and that feeling somehow made her feel proud of herself - after all, it was her who gave this beautiful and clever creature to the world. _Well, maybe Nate helped, just a little bit_... Elena chuckled at that thought. She couldn't believe how quickly time passed and that her goldilocks baby girl wasn't a child anymore. Elena missed those peaceful, family moments when she'd just sit by her, talk about her interests, do research for their next adventure or do Cassie's homework together. She especially missed those few moments when Nate happened to not be around and they both could have a girls' time. Of course, they frequently quarreled like rabid dogs, but they were quickly reconciling. Elena always wanted to be her child's friend, not just a parent. That's why she was so happy to hear at the ultrasound scan, that they're expecting a baby girl. She knew that a daughter stays with her mother for a lifetime. She remembered words her own mother told her once. _She never leaves too far, like a son does, when it's time for him to form his own family. Mothers and daughters are bound together forever, connected by the chain of life_ …

For an instant, she felt immortal.

"I know you're here," Cassie murmured suddenly into the pillow. Elena nearly jumped at the sound of her daughter's voice, then laughed cheerfully (partly because of her own sentimentality) and sneaked into the room to sit on the edge of Cassie's bed. Vicky followed her through the door and started inspecting unhurriedly the inside of the room.

"Morning, sunshine," Elena patted Cassie on her back, then brushed her hair off her ears. "If you were already awake why didn't you get up and start preparing some breakfast?"

"Pff," Cassie snorted into the pillow. "What's in it for me?"

"Well… What about a cup of good coffee in your old mother's company?" Elena teased her daughter and gave her a little kiss in the ear.

"I'd save myself this, really," Cassie muttered back and snickered. "Get yourself a coffee with dad. At least if you're not fighting anymore."

Elena froze for a moment, trying to guess Cassie's emotions on their yesterday's argument. Truth be told, she wasn't sure where were they standing either. She decided that skipping the subject for now would be a better solution. After all, Cassie wasn't a child anymore and that problem got to be solved solely between her and Nate.

"Speaking of dad, did you see him?" she asked, trying to make it sound as randomly as possible.

"Not since yesterday," Cassie replied, then raised her head off the pillow and took a look at her mother. Her eyes were still blurry with sleep and every hair on her head was sticking out in different direction. "Why?"

"Nothing," Elena answered, shrugging. "Maybe he's outside. I'll go and check."

"Weren't you talking something about breakfast?" Cassie asked lazily then yawned.

"There's this huge machine in our kitchen, it's called the fridge," Elena answered, sending Cassie a smirk. "There you'll hunt down your breakfast, big girl."

Cassie made a face. "Hate to be an adult."

"I've been waiting for you to say that one day," Elena replied with a short laugh, walking out of Cassie's room.

She checked on the house again, but there was still no sign of Nate. She started getting a little bit anxious. Although it wasn't cold in the house, she had goosebumps on her forearms.

 _Something here wasn't right_ …

Elena sighed, then made herself a coffee and walked out of the house on their porch, letting Vicky go out. The beach was empty and she saw no trace of Nate. She crossed her arms on her chest, covering herself tighter with her cardigan and took a deep breath. It was somewhat chilly that morning… or was it that strange anxiety?

She grasped the cup of coffee with both hands, feeling the heat of the cup warming up the skin on the inside of her hands, then inhaled the intense, warm scent of the liquid. _I see you're improving in incarcerating._ Nate's angry words from yesterday rumbled loudly and continuously in her head. She quivered at the memory and took a bit too generous sip of a hot coffee, slightly burning herself.

"Shit-" she hissed under her breath. _What the hell is going on?_ _Is my body aware of something that my mind still isn't?_ She took a deep breath, lacing her fingers on the warm cup again and looked at the horizon. _The way he stiffened under my touch. That look in his eyes_. _I saw that look before_ … _A long time ago…_

"No," Elena gasped quietly but imperatively to herself, closing her eyes for an instant to drive aged demons away. _It's impossible_ _to happen again._

She took another sip of coffee and suddenly noticed Nate as he walked out of their beach studio and minced towards their home: hands in his pockets, his head lowered, in the yesterday's clothes. In the distance, in the bushes behind their studio, Elena could notice some bright flashes, probably from the paparazzis' flash bulbs.

"Nate!" she came up to him, walking a few steps down. "Where have you been?"

Nate raised his head and gazed at Elena with a faraway look. He looked exhausted and overworked. His hair were disheveled and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked thinner and absent. It almost made Elena to make a step backwards at the sight.

"Working," he murmured and walked past his wife to the inside of their house. His voice was a bit hoarse. "Couldn't sleep."

Elena sighed and followed him inside. "All night?"

Nate didn't stop even for a moment and walked straight to their bedroom. "…'Suppose so."

Elena scoffed at the answer. "On what?" she asked, irritated.

Nate groaned in reply, but didn't say anything coherent. Elena watched him as he walked through the corridor. When he reached their bed, he didn't even take off his clothes; instead, he just fell on his stomach, face down to the mattress and stopped moving. Probably falling instantly asleep.

"Christ," Elena let her hands go down to her sides. For a second she thought that she should wake him up and force him to talk to her, but then she remembered his recent insomnia. She decided that it would be better for him to sleep, if his organism urges him to so badly… _Maybe when he'll wake up, he'll feel better_.

Cassie got out of her room and looked into her parents' bedroom. She stared at her father's motionless body sprawled on the bed, then turned on her heel and walked into the kitchen. "Guess who's back," she announced to her mother, pointing at behind her back.

Elena sighed in reply. "Yeah, I know."

"So where was he?"

Elena braced against the counter. "He said he was working."

Cassie raised her eyebrow. "On what?"

"No idea," Elena replied, then glanced at Cassie and smiled merrily, trying to hide the anxiety in her eyes. "You know your father. Always chasing after something. Wanna coffee?"

That day Nate didn't wake up before the sun started to set down. He was sleeping so deeply that Elena had to go several times and check on him if he was still breathing.

When he finally did wake up, he crawled out of the bed with a groan loud enough for Elena to hear it even from the kitchen. She discretely took a peek at the corridor and noticed her husband shambling slowly in the bathroom's direction.

 _Just about time_ , she thought. She turned on her heel and made one final check on their dinner meal: lasagna. It was almost ready, it only needed two more minutes in the oven. Elena smiled to herself proudly. She wasn't the type of woman that concentrates on housekeeping, but a shared dinner seemed to her like a good idea to pour oil on trouble waters. They'd have time to talk, to think about next steps and so on. Unlike Nate, Elena had a whole day to think through things and she had enough of that yesterday's fight already. Also, she decided to remain positive.

 _He'll be all right._

When the meal was finally ready, she drew it from the oven and placed on a huge plate on the table. Then she took a bottle of orange juice from the fridge and picked three glasses from the cupboard. When she was turning around, she suddenly noticed something she completely didn't expect to see: Nate's back in the doorway to the outside of the house.

"…Nate?" she heard herself asking aloud with great surprise in her voice. He seemed to her like if he was sneaking out... Nate instantly stopped at the doorstep and slowly turned around to face her.

"Oh," he sighed and scratched his head, but didn't move from his spot or come near her. There was something studied in his movements and that made Elena take a closer look at him. "Hello. I didn't see you."

Elena stood in the middle of their kitchen, with three glasses in her hand and a bottle of juice in another, unable to decide whether she should actually laugh or yell at him. She felt her pulse quickening. That bastard was ostentatiously and shamelessly lying to her face - she knew it. She just knew it. "What's wrong with you? I was standing right here…"

Nate looked lazily around the room and shrugged, then put his hands in his pockets. For a second Elena had an impression that she's invisible to him - she might as well not stand there at all for him. She gazed at her husband, hesitating. Though he slept nearly the whole day, his face was grey and his eyes were bleary, with the same faraway look. He was still wearing the same clothes and his hair was in great dishevel.

 _Positive thinking_ , _Fisher._

Elena sighed helplessly at her own remark and came to the table, placing down the glasses and a bottle around the big plate with lasagna. _Let's give that bastard a chance to make some amends_ , she thought _._

"I prepared dinner. Serve yourself," she announced coldly (though she tried so hard to make it sound gentler), then turned and went back to the kitchen to take the remaining part of parmesan from the fridge. "Cassie, dinner!" she called her daughter while searching the fridge. When she turned around again, Nate wasn't seated at the table. Instead, he was standing over the large plate with lasagna and clumsily putting a huge piece of it on his plate. Elena closed the fridge behind her and slowly approached him.

"Nate," she started, putting aside the plate with parmesan and observing him closely as he was hurriedly pouring himself a glass of juice. "What are you doing? Wait for Cassie…"

He didn't look up at her. "Nah, sorry, I'll eat in the studio."

Elena sighed with impatience and braced against the table. It was now clear to her that they _weren't_ over that fight from yesterday, but right now she found herself running out of peaceful and positive intentions very quickly. "What shit you're bringing up here? First you didn't come home for a night," she pointed, feeling the rising heat in her chest, "then you've slept the whole day, and now you don't even have time to eat dinner with us?"

He looked up, licking the tomato sauce from his finger. "I have work to do," he murmured in her direction. Still, he was avoiding her look.

That was too much for her to bear. Elena stood upright and opened her mouth, ready to tell him something that could stop him from going away.

But then the memory of _that look_ of his ran through her head, paralyzing her like a lightning strike. _I see you're improving in incarcerating_.

Her words simply didn't come out. The lust for freedom and independence was something that brought them together from the beginning. It was the adventure too, but it came somehow discretely with the independence. Their way to happiness meant being free, but while being together. She didn't want to take that away from him… from them. They struggled all these years to discover this truth, then learned hard to make it possible and they succeed…

That day Elena couldn't do anything but stand and watch her husband disappear outside the door without a word. She made a quick, shallow breath and made a step forward, but all she heard was the sound of a shutting door.

She didn't want that. But she let him go.

The scenario repeated itself almost to the detail for another five days and nights in a row.

Each morning Nate was back home with the sunrise and slept until the afternoon or early evening. He was sleeping soundly, like a child - very exhausted child - sprawled across both sides of their bed, breathing heavily. He was falling asleep so fast that he didn't even try to cover himself with a blanket.

Each evening he was walking out just before the sunset, always with something to eat and drink. Unshaved and poorly washed, changing his clothes only a few times. He hardly spoke to Cassie and Elena anything more than a casual "Hi" and then went back to his hermitage. Soon this sloppy, cold and ignorant behavior of his made Elena care less and less about him - reciprocally. Elena was never, ever the first one to fully and unconditionally accept Nate's (and anybody else's) quirks, and now, when her husband started acting like a total cold-blooded asshole, she didn't hesitate to hit back. She wasn't a type of a wife who ducks her head and makes the best of a bad job. And so, on the second day, Elena ostentatiously stopped preparing food for him or doing laundry. Partly because her sense of pride didn't allow her to act like nothing happened and partly because of a spark of hope, that maybe he'd have noticed the difference… But then Nate just started carrying greater amounts of food straight from the fridge and leaving the house without a single word.

Each night Nate didn't come back to sleep in the house. Each night Elena stayed up late in their bed, alone, waiting for him to come to her, but it was all in vain. She was eventually falling asleep on her side, with a book or a laptop on her lap. She was waking up at night several times, only to find his side of the bed still cold and empty. Then she was wrapping the blanket tighter around herself. Though they lived in a rather tropical climate she was practically struggling to live through each night, alone in a bed that seemed to her to be made of ice.

After witnessing the outburst of anger that grew up inside Nate when they had that fight, Elena started to figure out very soon that she never felt so left behind before in her life - she didn't feel this way even when Nate was thousands of miles away from her, practically on the other side of the planet, working with D&F Fortunes during their golden era… Even earlier during their relationship, when he vanished from her sight in Yemen or in Nepal and she was expecting the worst, she always had that spark in her heart, that was perversely repeating to her that he's all right and he's on his way to come back… Even when she left him on Madagascar and came home by herself she had that stubborn feeling that he was close. Thinking of her. Missing her. Loving her… even if it meant hurting her at the same time by his stupid actions. But now, although he was living in the same property, which he wasn't practically leaving, he seemed like he was actually stuck somewhere in the other galactic. Light years away from her.

On the third day two armed policemen showed up in their house and took Nate for a hearing at the police station. Although they may have seemed a little bit serious and scary, Elena knew, that apart from the photo from Nepal they didn't have any additional, particular evidence against Nate. If they had any, they wouldn't simply invite for the interrogation - instead they'd probably drop by at the daybreak and head him off like a presumed war criminal. That'd surely excite the paparazzis outside the house. Elena woke Nate up and tried to comfort him by giving him a pat on his shoulder, but he simply took his jacket and walked out with the policemen, without looking back. He was back in the evening, reluctant to talk about the interrogation. He only admitted that he's fine. Then he took some food from the fridge and got back to his studio. In that moment Elena started to think that it's not that he simply prefers working at night. That could be true, if he wasn't so worn out that day, after so many hours at the police station. Anybody would just pass out at the middle of the room.

In that moment Elena started to understand that the thing Nate was avoiding so rancorously was _her_.

They weren't touching each other caringly anymore, and he was barely even looking at her, fixating his sight somewhere in front of him. He didn't care when she had stopped preparing him food or doing laundry. He just didn't care, which made it easier for her to stop caring too. The stress and the feeling of helplessness that came from the mysterious letters and then from the media fuss actually affected them badly even earlier. Since the very outbreak of that craziness they both didn't feel like being intimate. It could be understandable a couple days ago, because until then they had maintained physical contact between them - they were lying in the same bed, in each other's embrace, gazing on each other with loving eyes - they both had sought that contact. But now, for the last five days, things changed dramatically. They were no longer sleeping in the same bed, they weren't even sleeping at the same time of the day, they weren't eating together, didn't speak to each other… hardly even spent more than a couple of seconds in the same room. And every day it was getting worse.

Elena spent her days with Cassie or by herself, seeing Nate only when he was coming back in morning and going out in the evening. Originally Cassie played the uninterested part and pretended she didn't care, but then even she started running out of patience. She was trying to smoothen things between her parents, but to no effect. Then she took entirely Elena's side and started getting angry at her father's behavior. The thing was that Nate seemed like he didn't care… He was acting absent-minded, even to his own daughter.

That couple of days changed Nate entirely and beyond recognition. Slowly their shared things and everyday rituals disappeared. There was no longer _their work_ , as he was now committing solely to _his work_. There were no _their problems_ , all of them were _his problems_ and it was up to him to deal with them.

There was less and less of _them_. And it was happening horrifyingly fast, like never before. It wasn't that bad even before he headed off in search of Francis Drake's traces. But things were so similar that it made Elena terrified.

A couple of times Elena got up at night and walked outside, on their porch, to notice a glow of light in their beach studio's windows. But she always hesitated to come nearer when Nate was there. She remembered his words, said by him in anger, that hit her more than she could imagine. That she's not on his side... That she's enslaving him.

She had a feeling that she was losing him. Again. It was actually happening again.

So when on the sixth night she saw the light in the darkness again, she didn't hesitate anymore. She didn't want to feel so helpless anymore.

She wrapped her cardigan tighter around her and walked barefoot on the chilly beach.

* * *

And so we go, with the next chapter. How did you like Elena POV? I didn't write much of this kind of fanfiction, though my first ff was written from that perspective.

For so many years they were okay. It's hard for Elena to believe that this nightmare can repeat itself. Not after so many years. Not when they have Cassie and everything was good… But Nate's demons aren't asleep.

I wish you all a very happy Christmas, full of hope and family spirit. May the upcoming New Year bring you many joyful moments and successes! :)


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12 - Akkad**

Elena walked slowly on the wooden stairs and stood for an instant in the ray of light coming from the inside of the cabin through the half-opened door. She held her breath. She couldn't see Nate yet, she could hear him though; scribbling something strongly with a marker pen on their board, then walking back and forth. Muttering something incoherent under his breath. Fully concentrated on his new obsession.

Elena hesitated one more time, then pushed the door open and stepped into the room, trying to make enough noise to be noticed. But Nate seemed completely ignoring the sound of the creaking door. He was reading something aloud in an ancient language, standing over their shared desk, stacked with various papers (mainly prints from the Internet), maps and old books. While reading, he was running his hand through his hair and over his unshaved chin, furrowing his eyebrows.

She didn't say anything yet and looked around, crossing arms on her chest. On the right hanged a huge map of the ancient Middle East. She could easily guess the spot in Nate's interest - the ancient Mesopotamia. The region on both banks of Euphrates was filled with little sticky notes, each scribbled with the big sign "X" and an arrow. The floor around the desk was covered by countless, squashed sticky notes, which had to meant that Nate was slowly narrowing the range of his research.

"What are you doing here?" Nate asked unexpectedly with a hoarse voice, still staring at the sheet of paper on the desk. His words made her nearly jump of surprise.

"Me?" she asked sarcastically, tightening her muscles and slowly approaching him. "I guess that I'm the one who should ask this question."

"I've already made myself clear at least a couple of times before," he answered her shortly, putting aside a sheet of paper. " _I'm working_."

Elena snorted, stepped over the pile of books lying on the floor next to their desk and took a seat in a chair. Out of pure curiosity, she took a file of papers from under a fat book, feeling Nate's sight on her while she was doing it. She looked up to see Nate's serious look, focused on her.

"What?" she asked quietly, grasping papers in both hands. There was something in his eyes that gave her a shiver. A cold shiver. The ringing of alarming bells in her ears almost made her deaf.

"Nothing," he replied coldly, turning his attention back on the papers in front of him. "Just… try not to make a mess here, okay?"

Elena ducked her head and clasped her fingers firmly on the paper. "Just to remind you, it was supposed to be _our_ place, not just yours."

Nate looked up and chuckled quietly. "It was," he agreed, raising his eyebrows like with irony, but he didn't say anything more. He turned on his heel to walk into the second room.

Elena bit her lip at his words, then got on her feet and threw the prints on the desk with great strength. The fat pile made a loud thud hitting the wooden surface, making Nate come to a dead stop.

"Don't ignore me!" she yelled. "What the fuck is wrong with you?! What is that you want?!"

Nate blinked then shrugged. "I told you, I'm wor-"

"No, no, no, enough of this bullshit, Nate," she made a step forward, feeling the anger quickly flooding her chest. "I don't deserve any of this, you hear me?"

"Of course you don't," he answered calmly, then passed her by and walked over to their board to rip another sticky note from the map. "Go back to sleep," he ordered, crushing the paper in his hand. "I'll join you in a while."

Elena didn't move even for an inch, then shook her head and swallowed the cry that was creeping inside her chest. "You won't."

Hearing this, Nate froze in front of their board, with his back to her - wordlessly denying her the entrance to his world once more. Elena felt her cheeks burn with anger and heartbreak, her mouth went dry. She took a deep, yet tremulous breath. To be silent seemed easier, because it helped to build a solid shell around, to desensitize herself. Get herself together and play the brave. After days of constant silence she found it so hard to speak, to say out loud everything she was thinking about, speaking out all the hurt she was feeling every lonely night. She got used to that silence.

"Tell me…" she whispered in a last attempt. "I am your wife. I have the right to know..."

After an instant that seemed an eternity Nate finally turned around and looked up at her with a bit distrust in his eyes, then made a sigh. He reached to his pocket and placed some little and bright object on the desk.

Elena looked at him twice with insecurity, then approached him and took the object in both hands. It was a tiny statuette of some animal, probably a lion, standing on its back paws. The rectangular platform was divided by carved lines, and its back side was filled with some ancient script. Elena quickly recognized that script. "Where did you got it from?"

Nate crossed his arms on his chest. "Believe it or not," he started, "but I found it on our beach. After that big storm, that came the night Cassie returned home."

Elena raised her eyebrow. As far as this explanation seemed very unlikely, she got used to the fact that he was constantly finding himself in the most incredible situations. But right now she also started to get stuffed by the tone he was speaking to her. "I do believe you," she whispered firmly. "And? What's with this statuette?"

Nate walked over and braced over their desk. "At first I didn't have a single clue either. All I managed to ascertain was that the script on the back side is Akkadian. So, this could be created in some time during the Akkadian Empire's period, but…"

"…but?" Elena asked encouragingly after a second of silence.

"I just… I could feel," Nate started slowly again, clenching his hand into a fist and slightly lifting it above the surface of the table, "that it holds something more within. Something that I didn't notice at first sight. I mean… it's certainly not a kid's toy; they were made of wood or cheaper material, like sandstone, clay... And this little piece of shit was made of pure alabaster, so a highly decorative and expensive material… It had to be a part of somebody's treasure…"

Elena felt the familiar sensation of the quickening of her heart beat. "…and you figured that it may be from the ancient city of Akkad origin?"

She could see a glow of pride in his eyes, then he sent her a crooked smile. "That's exactly what I think."

Elena breathed the air out and leaned against the wall, placing the statuette gently on the desk. "Oh well… Then I guess congratulations are in order, you found a really nice antic to our collection. Then why you're spending so much time here if you've already solved the riddle?"

Nate straightened himself up and looked down at her provocatively, taking as always the advantage of the height difference between them. "Who said that's the end of the riddle?"

Elena looked up at him, surprised. "What?"

"I mean," he pointed at the sculpture, "what if it's a signpost?"

Elena raised her both eyebrows, not sure what was he talking about. "A signpost to where? To Akkad?"

Nate didn't say anything in reply, but smiled, placing his hands on both hips. "Bingo."

Elena frowned at him with disbelief, then took a statuette back in her hands, rotating it in every direction. She slid the tips of her fingers over the mysterious rabbets on the lion's platform, then over the cuneiform script. "How?"

Nate smiled proudly. "Allow me," he murmured, taking the sculpture from Elena's hands, then brought it closer to his eyes and started reading aloud the text on the bottom of the platform in the Akkadian language.

When he had finished, Elena shook her head and snorted sarcastically. "All right, my ancient Akkadian tutor won't visit me until the day after tomorrow. English version in the meantime, please?"

Nate chuckled. "It's almost totally preserved, only a few letters from the final part are missing." He took another breath.

 _Behold and hail the king over the kings, emperor of the sun and stars, of this land and sacred rivers, the rightful ruler, Sargon, king of Akkad, risen from the dusts of the desert to unite the people of this valley from Elam on the South to Levant on the North, with the capital in Akkad, the most beautiful and majestic city the world have ever seen, the fortress and the beating heart of the Empire, to be at the forefront and to protect…_

He stopped reading and looked at Elena. His eyes were now full of almost childish excitement. She made a resigned sigh. "Let's say I'm impressed," she admitted, crossing her arms on her chest, "but I don't understand what you've got in mind. Akkad's location is still unknown."

"Yeah, the large part of this text is useless, eulogistic bullshit," Nate admitted, apparently trying to sound wise, "but this part… _to be at the forefront and to protect_ is the goddamn key. Don't you understand? It was _the fortress._ "

Elena tilted her head. "I don't follow."

"Oh man," Nate heaved a sigh and put down the statuette on the desk. "Then I guess I should start from the beginning. Thousands of years ago-"

"Cut it out, I know the story," Elena interrupted him, getting on her feet and walking towards the map in the second room. "Almost five thousands of years ago, between the rivers of Euphrates and Tiger, lied the fertile region, that's been inhabited ever since the Neolithic period. It was called by the Greek as Mesopotamia, _the land between the rivers_. Thanks to the rivers that overflew their banks every year its fertile soil was attractive since the very beginning of the civilization. It was inhabited by a number of ancient people…"

"…the Sumerians, the Gutian, the Assyrians, but they actually showed up later…" Nate whispered quickly, interrupting her and pointing his hand over the appropriate regions on the map, "…and our _la crème the la crème_ , the Akkadians…"

"Yeah…" Elena admitted, putting her one hand in her pants' pocket and waving her other hand over the whole map of the Mesopotamia. "The first biggest empire that united all people of this region under one rule. They ruled for over two hundred years on such a wide territory that they supposedly thought they ruled the whole ancient world…"

"…and they weren't very wrong, actually…" Nate added.

"…they also introduced new language that slowly took over the Sumerian language. It was commonly used on this territory, almost like English in our times, and was popular even long after the fall of the Akkadians' empire. The Akkadians' golden era reached its peak during the reign of Sargon, its first and most powerful ruler, the architect of their empire. He was a great warrior, he conquered surrounding tribes and established a wealthy and proud civilization. Yet, his lineage is still unknown and mysterious. He became a legend even during his life. He established the capital of the new empire in the city of Akkad…"

"Okay, I see you've read a book or two," Nate interrupted her, then approached the map from the other side. "So, you said that the city of Akkad is still undiscovered, didn't you?" Elena nodded. "You're right," Nate continued, "but do you know why?" He made a significant pause. "Because from over thirty years, everybody's been looking for it on the both banks of Tigre."

"Yeah," Elena admitted after a second, swaying her body from side to side. "Because all heretofore found traces lead in this direction..."

" _Heretofore_ , sure," Nate interrupted her again, took the sculpture from the desk with one quick motion and approached her, handling the object up. "Until now. Until this little son of a bitch appeared on our beach. Do you see these lines, under its paws? Does it ring a bell now?"

Elena looked up at Nate with slight disbelief and frowned at the platform of the sculpture. Now it took her only a few seconds to understand. She raised her head at the map and gasped. "That's Tigre and Euphrates…" she lifted the statue, and approached the map, "which means that its paws…"

"…are the signposts," Nate followed. "One is straight on where lied the ancient city of Assur, above the line which has to be the Tigre river," he pointed at the city's location on the map, right on the western bank of Tigris, on a triangular headland, "and the other paw… stands somewhere here." He slowly moved his finger on the surface of the map to the West, and stopped it above the region filled with attached sticky notes.

Elena took a closer look at the location, then looked up at Nate with widened eyes. "It was the fortress…" she gasped, " _to be at the forefront and to protect…_ on the far North of the country, to counter the hostile attacks as soon as possible…"

"…and to be one of the first cities to be visited by the merchants from the North… Which means that it was collecting all the best merchandise… Unimaginable treasures…"

They both fell silent, gazing intensely at the map.

"This is _big_ , Elena," Nate gasped after a moment, covering the area on the map with the palm of his hand, "No, it's _huge_. It's the biggest discovery of the century, nearly as big as the finding of Tutankhamun's grave. It's probably the biggest discovery of my life. And I'm so close to find it. I just know it."

Elena looked into his radiantly blue eyes, full of excitement and exhaustion at the same time. Then she frowned at the little, Akkadian lion in her hands. "Nate…" she started, then swallowed. "…why you were hiding here before me? All these days…"

"Oh Christ," Nate sighed with annoyance and shrugged his shoulders. "Don't start this again… Who cares now _why_ …"

"I do," Elena looked up. "I do care, Nate."

Nate rolled his eyes. Pointedly and dismissively. "All right," he sighed, "I wanted to be alone. I needed peace. I wanted to concentrate on my work."

Elena nodded slowly. "Okay. I understand. Though I remember times when there was no _my_ work or _your_ work… it was solely _our_ work."

The look Nate gave her in reply was incandescent. "I thought we were over this. And now you really want to restart this fight from the beginning, do you?"

"I was never over it," she hissed back. "How could I be over it while you were drifting apart from me with each passing day? You call it a normal and happy marriage?"

Nate snorted. "…you ever heard of one of a kind?"

Elena lifted her eyes on him and felt anger fulfilling her heart, warming up her cheeks and pricking her eyes. She looked up at his cocky face and felt that sudden urge to leave a trace of her punch on it. She resisted it, though with an effort. "Whatever, asshole," she snapped back, clenching her fists.

Nate straightened himself up at the insult but didn't say anything in return. After a second he scratched his head and sighed deeply. "Sorry. I didn't mean to…"

He didn't finish the sentence. Elena sighed sadly and nodded faintly. They just stood before each other, motionlessly. Elena noticed a fluff of dust next to the desk and frowned at it with her full attention, trying to resist her husband's look on her.

"I…" Nate finally said out loud, breaking the silence and walking over to the map of Mesopotamia. "I still have to do more research… but I guess that soon I'll have more ideas on the exact location of the city. I would be able to narrow the area to approximately three archeological sites, that we'll have to check on spot."

Elena watched him with silence and expectancy.

"This may bring me…" he stopped, then took a deep, exasperated breath and looked at Elena with glazed look. "This may bring _us_ back our good name, our reputation… our life. Everybody would forget about this fuss with my… past. We could come back to do what we loved… If we could only find it…"

These words soothed Elena's heart. _So he wasn't this egoistic after all_ … _He was trying to fix everything…_ _In his wicked way, as usual._ She looked at Nate, feeling hope for the first time for days. She couldn't help when a shy smile formed on her face. She squeezed the alabaster lion in her hands and looked up at the map. Her mind started galloping, planning the expedition, making lists of demands and searching through the usual shipping and cargo costs… Her consciousness narrowed for an instant to the area on both banks of Euphrates, filled with sticky notes. _It has to be somewhere here_ … _only waiting to be found_ …

And then her heart almost stopped beating when she understood what exactly she was looking at. And that consciousness nearly made her collapse, she couldn't feel her legs. "Oh my god…" were the only words she managed to whisper.

"Are you in?" she suddenly heard Nate's words. "Will we do this together?" She turned to him, seeing a smile on his face that started to disappear as soon as he noticed her panicked eyes.

"Nate!" Elena gasped, strengthening her grip on the statuette. "We can't go there… not now… we can't…"

Nate blinked then giggled nervously, trying to play it cool. "I know. It's a terrific idea and you're always so impatient, but I didn't mean immediately… Getting things organized surely would take us a month or two… plus, I'd have to borrow some money…"

"No, Nate, listen…" Elena tried to interrupt him.

"Don't worry! We'll manage!" he continued, as if allowing her to speak was something that he feared the most. "We'll surely have to hire less people than usually, which means the length of the trip will extend, but we'll manage somehow. Will we? Just like old times, huh?"

Elena's heart stopped at that words.

"Nate, listen to me," Elena finally got his attention. "We _can't_ go there."

Nate looked down at her, surprised. "Why?"

Elena bit her lip with unease then glanced at the map and back at her husband. "This region…" she pointed at the both banks of the northern Euphrates. "It's…

* * *

Well, I haven't forgot about this story. I've had too many unfinished stories in my life, and I really want to finish this one. Though there's a long way before me until then. Hope the next update will appear sooner than that one :)

Hope you enjoyed!


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